WAIS held its Champions Breakfast this morning and once again it was a privilege to be in the room with so many talented young athletes.
Lachlan Cooke took out the WAIS Career and Education Excellence Award. This is one remarkable 20 year old who has set up his own Charity to assist the Indigenous communities in the Kimberley. He is encouraging young Aborigines to attend school and his program has seen a marked increase in attendance levels. He is also a very talented Kayaker who has made a youth Australian squad; although he did tell everyone he need to work on his “gluts” so that he can keep the Kayak straight! We hope to have him on the show very soon.
The Triumph award which is awarded to athletes who overcome significant adversity to continue their sporting career and demonstrate traits such as persistence and courage, was won by World Champion gymnast Lauren Mitchell.
Lauren was injured for the early part of 2010 and was contemplating retirement, but came back to win gold at the Commonwealth Games and become the first Australian female Gymnast to win gold at the World Championships.
The WAIS Coach of the year award could have gone to the Cycling or Gymnastics departments but it was the latter that came through to take the award.
Cycling had their moment with Darrell Benson taking the stage to collect the WAIS Sport Program of the Year Award.
What is fantastic and a credit to all at WAIS is that we have several programs and coaches vying for these awards, it is not a foregone conclusion who will win, because one program is light years ahead of another.
Congratulations to all involved in WAIS!
