Armidale Athletics members have reached incredible heights in the last few years and now the club has been recognised with two awards at the state presentation.
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For the second consecutive year, Armidale Athletics was crowned the best country club by Athletics NSW for their on-track and off-track achievements and president Jay Stone won the prestigious club coach award.
Stone said it was “great to go back-to-back” in the country club category and credited the committee for their contribution to Armidale Athletics’ ongoing success.
“We have all put a lot of work in and over the years we have managed to grow the club into the powerhouse that it is today,” he said.
“We have had the largest roll up at NSW All Schools from any club, we have also had one of the largest roll ups at the NSW Junior Championships and we took a massive team to the NSW Country Championships where we won 90 medals.
“We have those community events running with the Armidale Fun Run, the Campus to City Canter and we are involved with a lot of other things and the growth in our membership has been substantial in the last three or four years, we have managed to double our growth.”
While the club has gone from strength-to-strength, Stone coached many of its athletes to triumphs at state and national level, as well as achieving his own feats on the world stage.
He was thrilled to receive the club coach and said it was something he had been aspiring to.
“The winner of this year's international coach of the year award, Michael Dooley who coaches Ella Nelson and a few other Olympians, two years ago he won the club award,” he said.
“Two years ago he was at the same level I am at and didn't have those Olympians. Within those years he has coached three or four.
“I am hoping to follow in his footsteps and get some of these Armidale people into those really big meets.”
Stone had personal success at world masters events, earning multiple gold medals but dedicates a lot of his time to helping local, young stars reach their goals and achieve success. He had 14 athletes compete at the national titles, a large number selected to travel to the Oceania championships and has helped nearly 20 take on the state’s best.
“I won the administrator of the year award a couple of years ago, which was great to have the recognition but I sat at the awards when the coach awards were given out and thought I would really love to win that award because that is where my passion really lies in helping and coaching,” he said.
“I wouldn't say I expected it but it was the one I had really been wanting to win.”
Stone heads to Darwin this weekend to compete at the Australian Masters alongside Bob Flint and Nathan Smith.