Tickell tackles biggest race

LOGAN Tickell will mark the biggest race of his athletics career on Easter Saturday.

The 17-year-old from Kangaroo Flat is in Australia’s team of six to contest the under-20 eight-kilometre race at the world cross-country championships in Belgrade’s Park of Friendship in Serbia.

Thousands of hours are behind Tickell’s run to competing on the world stage for the first time.

A member of South Bendigo Athletics Club and young star of the Bendigo Bats cross-country squad, Tickell was sixth when he clocked a time of 25.36 in the selection trials on Canberra’s Mount Stromlo.

“It’s a dream come true,” Tickell said of racing in the green and gold. “A goal going into this year was to make the team for the world champs.”

Since his selection there’s been plenty of training in the bush and also on the Tom Flood Sports

Centre track.

Among those he has trained with are coach Andy Buchanan, seventh in the marathon at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and a dual national 10km cross-country champion.

Buchanan can also give tips about racing overseas from two previous hit-outs in the Hamburg Marathon.

Another training partner is Echuca-based Archie Reid who has run in Spain, Switzerland, and United Arab Emirates across a range of distances and terrain.

A previous scholarship recipient in Bendigo’s Sports Star of the Year awards, Tickell is one of the country’s exciting prospects in cross-country, road and track racing.

In Serbia, he will be doing all he can to achieve individual and

team success.