Pursu32+ puts regional young guns on track for the bright lights

The much-lauded Pursu32+ Pilot program may have ended, but New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) staff members are adamant it provided 40 emerging regional athletes with lessons and tools that ought to prove invaluable throughout their careers.

Launched by NSW Sports Minister, The Hon. Steve Kamper, MP at Parliament House last year [photo below], and described as the ‘benchmark’ of its type by Olympic gold medallist, and Chef de Mission for the Australian team at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Anna Meares, the purpose of the NSWIS ‘Ready’ PURSU32+ RAS Talent Program was to provide regional athletes with a taste of the rigors and demands of a high performance sports program.

“The feedback we’ve had about the camps from athletes, and also the academies, has been extremely positive,” said NSWIS’s Senior High Performance Manager, Anna Longman.

“There are many measures of success, but success to us at NSWIS is the support these athletes have received to understand the journey ahead for them. The Pursu32+ program has provided them with knowledge and tools to use in their regions and that will contribute to their development.

“We’re also pleased the athletes learnt so much from credentialled staff from NSWIS, Regional Academies of Sport (RAS), and the Office of Sport over the last 12 months that they’ve left us feeling confident and equipped for the journey ahead.

“The work of the RAS will support them on their journey, and we hope to see many of the athletes who participated in the program receive NSWIS scholarships in the future. And some appear to be on their way, having advanced to National Sporting Organisation categorisations, and, in some cases, NSWIS scholarships.”

The athletes, who came from all corners of the state received the opportunity to attend four camps where specialists including Longman, NSWIS High Performance Advisor (and Olympic gold medallist) Bradley McGee, NSWIS Manager, Performance Health, Sean Cooney, NSWIS Sport Dietician Holly Edstein, NSWIS Head of Strength and Conditioning, Simon Harries, NSWIS Athlete Wellbeing & Engagement Officer Anthony Quinn, and NSWIS Strength and Conditioning Coach Ebony Charles – shared their expertise in a manner the youngsters could understand and adapt to their own training regimes.

Allied with that a team of Olympians and Paralympians, including skateboarder Ruby Trew, multi-Olympic diving medallist Melissa Wu, 2023 world champion Para canoeist Dylan Littlehales, multi-Paralympic wheelchair racing medallist Rheed McCracken, and Olympic archer Peter Boukouvalas, spoke about their challenges and experiences.

Ebony Charles [photographed below], who grew up in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, and who attended each of the four camps held at either NSWIS/Sydney Olympic Park (twice), Jindabyne and Tamworth in her role as a NSWIS Strength and Conditioning coach, said the information and practical skills that were shared at the camps would’ve been invaluable for her to hear when she was the participants’ ages.

“I played netball in the regional pathways,” Charles said. “I didn’t play state, but we did have our association program which went into the regional-based system, which is like where these kids are at.

“I remember – and it would only have been eight or nine years ago when I was in that system – we received a piece of paper with warmup exercises, and that was the extent of what they gave us!

“Back then no-one did strength training or spoke about nutrition. Before going to Adelaide to do my degree I didn’t really have a grasp of what S&C was.

“These kids are extremely fortunate that each regional academy has someone to provide them with support. But to get this kind of insight [from Pursu32+] so early in their journey is going to mean a lot to them.

“Looking back, if I received the advice these athletes did when I was 15 or 16, it would’ve made a massive difference. Knowing how to manage my time; what to prioritise; what to eat, and how to balance everything would have been a great advantage because, when I look back, that’s where I went wrong with some things.”

Besides setting the athletes numerous team building activities, including a surfing session at URBNSURF at Sydney Olympic Park, they were exposed to sessions which focussed on an elite athlete’s ‘staples:’ nutrition, strength and conditioning, injury management and goalsetting.

“We did a lot of physical testing across the four camps,” said Charles. “But there was a focus around education, for instance, what we do in the strength and conditioning space and why we do it.

“Goalsetting is something young athletes don’t have much exposure to in regional areas. As someone who grew up in the country, I didn’t have anyone to talk to about how to plan my weeks, how to prioritise my training sessions. A lot of the kids want to commit to everything, but it’s about working out where the big blocks are in their training and balancing school, life, travel, and other things.

“I feel as though they got a lot out of the camps by learning about the management skills, having goals . . .  even working out what their goals are . . . and how to achieve them.”

Charles said it was pleasing to see how the group gelled over the year-long pilot program, and their growth as athletes.

“They were a very close-knit group by the end of it,” she said. “On one of the last days at out final camp we did some reflection on where they were 12 months ago, and many of them had changed their mindset from just doing the basics to having more tools in their toolkit and knowing how to use them.

“Their pathway became much clearer than it was before the program. They’ve reached out to a different network, or created bigger networks, and that could include adding more people to help them rather than just having a coach.

“They’ve learnt how to ask for help, and they were quite vocal about understanding that and knowing what they need to do going forward rather than sticking to the confines of their sport.

“There are some kids who won’t realise how special an opportunity being a part of the Pursu32+ program has been for them until they step away and realise [success] is not just a given for them. I think most of them are realising they need to do more work because fulfilling their goals won’t be a walk in the park.

“And that was a message shared by some elite athletes, including Paralympian Rheed McCracken, who spoke about how [success] is not something that happens overnight, and that there are ups and downs.

“He admitted there’s times when you want to quit, but Rheed said it’s how you get through that. I thought it was good to see it’s not just an automatic selection and they’re going to have to put the work in.”

Charles, who was the Adelaide United youth teams head of Strength and Conditioning before joining NSWIS where she’s embedded in the Individual Sports Program, said ‘long-term’ benefit was always at the forefront of her mind while training the Pursu32+ cohort.

“It was important to do something that would impact their future,” she said. “I could’ve given them a big gym session, but that’s not going to change anything; it was important to provide a legacy, something that’d allow them to think 10-years down the track ‘that really helped me’.

“I found it rewarding to know you can have an impact on them going forward, and, helping them develop people skills and realising the importance of being a good person and how to grow in that space.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS