IAAF World Youth Championships – One Month to Go

With just one month to go to the IAAF World Youth Championships in Lille, France, the global gathering of the sports’ youngest category of age – only athletes born in 1994 and 1995 are eligible to compete in Lille – is set to be yet again a true springboard for tomorrow’s generation of world-wide athletics stars.

Looking back at previous editions, the list of World and Olympic champions who emerged from this IAAF competition which was introduced back in 1999 is impressive. From sprinters of the caliber of Jamaica’s Usain Bolt (200m winner in 2003) and USA’s Allyson Felix (100m winner in 2001) to field event winners Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia (Pole Vault champion in 1999) and Valerie Adams of New Zealand (Shot Put champion in 2001) to name just a few…

And it may well be that another New Zealander steals the show in Lille next month in the likes of 16-year-old Jacko Gill who won a surprise gold medal at last year’s World Junior championships in Moncton, Canada, aged just 15!

In fact, with a then World Junior leading effort of 20.76m, Gill became the youngest ever male World Junior champion aged 15 years and 213 days; the previous youngest champion being no other than Triple World record holder Usain Bolt himself who won the World Junior 200m back in 2002 aged 15 years and 332 days!

Gill is still eligible to compete in Lille World Youth Championships and will certainly benefit from the invaluable international experience he gained over the past year which also saw him win silver with a new Area Youth record 22.60m at the First Youth Olympic Games in Singapore.

Interestingly, Jacko’s older sister Ayla Gill also competed in Moncton last year managing a sixth place finish in the women’s Hammer Throw final. What springs to mind is the similar results of Wes and Allyson Felix at the World Junior Championships in 2002 where Wes won bronze in the men’s 200m final and Allyson took “only” fifth in the women’s event. But as history would then tell, she has since gone on to become one of the undisputable queens of the 200m…