Sprinter reaches new performance level in the ACT

BACCHUS Marsh sprinter Mackenzie Estlick has taken home a silver and bronze medal from the ACT Athletics Championships in Canberra.

Estlick came second in the under-20 200-metre race in a time of 24.72 seconds and third in the under-20 100-metre race clocking 12.29 seconds.

She also made the final of the under-20 60-metre sprint and finished in fifth place.

“It was good crossing the line and realising I had placed because I was against 20-year-olds,” she said.

“I could have done a bit better because I did my leg in the 60-metre sprint.

“I was pretty happy because I originally wasn’t going to run the [200 metre] at all and I placed second and got a PB, so it was pretty good.”

At last year’s Australian All Schools Athletics Championships held in Brisbane, Estlick ran the 100-metre in under 12 seconds for the first time and was the first woman from a Ballarat club to do so.

 

Since then, Estlick has consistently run the 100 metres in less than 12 seconds, and if it wasn’t for the headwind in Canberra, she would have done so at the ACT championships.

“There was a massive headwind for the 100 down at Canberra so it would have been under 12 if the headwind wasn’t there,” she said.

Next on the cards for Estlick are the Ballarat and Stawell gifts, where she hopes to place in the top five, and the Australian Track and Field Championships in Perth where she has her sights set on a top three position.

Estlick thanked her coach Gerrard Keating and sponsors Community Bank Bacchus Marsh, Accountant Group Geelong, Western Region Osteo and Bridgestone Regional Tyre Centre