Local athletes ready for world stage

THREE of Ballarat’s top high-performing athletes are warming up in Oregon, United States as they prepare for the World Athletics Championships.

Currently immersed in a training camp, racewalker Kelly Ruddick, high-jumper Yual Reath, and Tokyo Olympic javelin-thrower Kathryn Mitchell will compete for Australia within the next week-and-a-half.

Reath enters the world champs as Australian champion and is aiming to break his 2.25-metre record which he set in Ballarat, while Mitchell is striving for a medal place before she heads to the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

It will be the first time 49-year-old Ruddick has got to the starting line at a World Championships, but she is coming in hot as Oceania and Australian race-walking champion over 35 kilometres, and a World Masters record-breaker.

Kevin Ruddick, her dad, said she will have already broken a record as soon as the starting gun goes off, as the oldest woman ever to compete in the World Championships.

Ruddick took up race-walking in her mid-30s to keep fit, and to complement her running. By the time she was 40, she was Australian 20-kilometre open champion.

She previously qualified for the World Championships in China, however fell ill and wasn’t able to compete.

“She’s had a lot of problems with injury and illness, and I’m hoping this time it will work out and go well,” Mr Ruddick said.

“She is a busy mother of four children balancing her intense athletics training. I’m really pleased for her and what she’s achieved.”