The future is looking bright for a pair of Dubbo athletes after they recently returned from the national titles with several medals.
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Dubbo Athletics Club's Grace Peters and Ella Penman recently returned home after representing NSW at the Australian Track and Field Championships, with both competitors putting in excellent performances.
Peters won a silver medal in the under 15 women's discus while also finishing seventh in the under 17 women's shot put.
"I was happy with that and the personal best was pretty good," she said.
Peters threw 39.08m at the event, which broke her own personal best by a fairway.
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"It was like a metre personal best, which is pretty far," she said.
Penman dominated on the track winning three medals across three different events and distances.
The Dubbo runner won a bronze medal in the under 17 women's 400m, a silver medal in the 800m and gold in the 4/400m relay for the under 18 women's age group.
Penman admitted she was pretty impressed by her own results.
"I was pretty excited by that, I mainly just do individual stuff but it was fun doing the relay," she said.
"At the moment I prefer the 800m."
Along with Peters and Penman, Dubbo Athletics Club had some other great performances.
Max McAneney finished 12th in the under 16s men's 400m, while Ben Batten came 9th in the under 18s men's shot put event.
Dubbo Park Run gun Lockie Townsend finished 15th in the under 20s men's 5000m before backing it up by finishing 21st 3000m.
Jack Cosier was also centimetres away from medaling in the under 20s para men's shot put and discus, finishing 4th in both events.
Dubbo Athletics Club's Sarah Ryan said the club is in a really good place after the recent strong performances.
"The whole team did really well, just to have that many athletes there to start off was really good for the club," she said.
In the long run, I'd like to go the Olympics.
- Grace Peters
"It just shows how strong the club is at the moment."
Dubbo Athletics Club like many sporting organisations was impacted heavily by COVID-19.
The club was set to hold its historic New Years' carnival back in January before the pandemic forced the event to be cancelled, while other local events have also been impacted in the past 24 months.
Peters said the performances of all Dubbo's athletes were brilliant considering the last two years have made training difficult.
"It was on and off because we didn't get much of the season last year because of COVID," she said.
Peters said she is looking forward to continuing her training before her next big meet and hopes to one day don the green and gold.
"For me, I have the Oceania comps coming up in June," she said.
"In the long run, I'd like to go to the Olympics."
Like Peters, Penman also has a big international target in mind when looking ahead to what is coming up.
"I've been working towards the under 20 world qualifiers, so next year or the year after that I'll see if I can get the times," she said.
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