KAYLA Costello has excelled at athletics in the five years since she started.
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This year, she added Athletics NT’s coveted Junior Female Athlete of the Year silverware to her already brimming trophy collection.
The next few months are shaping up as busy ones for Costello, with the Australian Junior Athletics Championships in Canberra fast approaching.
Costello will be representing the Northern Territory in the 12 years and under track and field competition in the first week of December.
There, she will participate in several events, including the 100 metres, 200m, 400m, long jump and shot put.
Donning Territory colours will be nothing new for the athlete, who has made the selection cut for the past three national meetings.
At seven years old, she joined Katherine Athletics Club and her mother, Deb Rankine, explained that she just kept at it.
“She was seven years old when she started, and she liked it, and loved it, and continued to do it,” she said.
She was seven years old when she started, and she liked it, and loved it, and continued to do it.
- Costello's mother, Deb Rankine
As a member of Katherine Athletics Club, Costello spends most Friday evenings working on her skills.
Last year, she competed in Tasmania and won a gold medal in the multi-event discipline, Ms Rankine said.
“For the 11-year-old girls division, she is a national champion.”
It has been a big 2015 for Costello, who broke the NT long jump record for her age group with a leap that added more than 16 centimetres to the benchmark.
In the other events, she notched up four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, long jump and shot put, and had silver placed around her neck for her 800m effort.
She is currently considering an offer at a Sydney boarding school, where she would be able to pursue her athletics career.
The school she is likely to receive a scholarship from has coaches from the Commonwealth Games that can help her fine-tune her skills.
“[They will help me] get my technique right,” Costello said.
Costello and her mother are hoping to work out all the details surrounding the scholarship before the national competition in Canberra, so they can make the journey to inspect the Sydney campus before the 2016 school year starts.
An athlete of many talents, Costello was also selected to represent the NT in touch football, but could not compete due to her athletics commitments.
