Age: 16
Hi Caytlyn, So today I’d like to ask you a little about yourself, your sporting journey, your hopes and your plans for the future.
At just age 14 you won the World Championship in High Jump for your Para Classification,T/F20.
Can you tell us a little about what that meant to you?
Winning the Championship was cool, The only coaching I had was at Camperdown Little Athletics, it was special to compete against much older athletes that had been training their whole life to win.
To stand up on the medal Dais with My Australian Flag and to hear the National Anthem play, so far away from home was cool.
It was also different to get to compete against only Intellectually Disabled Athletes, as usually its against every type of Disability.
What are you hoping to achieve in the next 6 months?
I find out this week if I have made the INAS Global Games in Brisbane.
I am one of only two world INAS #WeareSport ambassadors and would love to get to compete in the games and show people that Women and Girls with a disability can achieve a lot through Sport.
I also am heading to Darwin for the Arafura International Games in two weeks, where I hope to try to break my Australian Under 18 Long Jump record again.
I just need to remember to hit the board and keep my head up high.
Do you have any hopes and dreams?
I want to better my results to one day make an Athletics Australia World Para Team.
So how did you get started in Athletics?
I started with Camperdown Little Athletics Club as an under 9. I competed able bodied. I hated it.
My mum used to have to lift me screaming into the car each week, but at the end of the season I won an medal for improvement and the next year I just wanted to go back and get more medal, as I got older I just liked the feeling that athletics gave me, it made me feel happy, safe and free.
What was your first major National Competition?
I didn’t know about Multi Class athletics until a lady from SSV told us about a pathway for me at the Regional Cross Country.
I made the State team, and then made the national team that competed in Melbourne at Albert Park. (I never knew we would almost be there all the time one day.)
Some of the people I met at that event have gone on to represent Australia and the World.
Two of my Team mates are now Australian Para Basketballers and Jaryd Clifford is a Rio Paralympian Middle and Long Distance runner!
What is your favourite thing about Athletics or Sport in General?
I like showing other people with a Disability that you can do it, that just because people think you cannot do something, it doesn’t mean that with help Support that you really can do it. I also like getting to see Australia and compete in new places, I used to be really scared of going to new places, but now It means I get to make new friends and see different things.
Thank you so much for your time! And Good Luck