52-year record broken

By Lachlan Ellis

A Girls 100m record has recently been broken at the Bacchus Marsh Little Athletics Centre (BMLAC), and it’s been 52 years in the making.

Nine-year-old Skyla Berryman broke the Under 10 record on Saturday 25 February, running the 100m track in a blazing 14.62 second performance.

The previous record of 14.80 seconds, held by Melissa Gage, goes all the way back to the 1970/71 BMLAC season.

Proud dad Jarred said it was a thrill to see Skyla break such a long-standing record.

“We were ecstatic, I’m usually recording every single race of theirs [Skyla and sister Mya] but at that time I was getting my son a hot dog, so it was the one race I missed,” Mr Berryman laughed.

“But we were over the moon. My wife was at work so she missed the race, but I rang her as soon as we finished to tell her. We can’t believe it, it’s a pretty big achievement for a nine-year-old kid. When Skyla finished the race and Linda actually told her what she’d achieved, she was pretty shocked.”

And while Mr Berryman says he and wife Lara aren’t pressuring Skyla into running, wanting to “let her be a kid”, it seems pretty clear what she wants to do at the moment.

“Athletics is her favourite activity…it’s probably her ultimate goal, to run for Australia eventually. But her being a kid you know, we try and let her be a kid as well and not push her to the point where she gets sick of it,” he said.

“But she’s at home at the moment watching old Cathy Freeman videos…it’s pretty clear what she wants to do if she’s watching Cathy Freeman videos on YouTube in her free time.

“Now that’s she’s nailed one record, she says she wants to try and get a few more.”