After three years of attempting to get the project off the ground, the Illawarra Academy of Sport will run its first Indigenous Talent ID Program today at the University of Wollongong.
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IAS athlete, coach and program manager, Scott Hatch, said the program had been halted numerous times due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said the IAS first started an Indigenous program in 2020, which aimed to increase sport participation for Indigenous athletes in the Illawarra.
Hatch said the program simply could not be run without the support of the new major sponsor of the program, MCR Wollongong and he said their support had enabled them to get the idea up-and-running.
"The idea behind the program is to grow the numbers of these Indigenous athletes that we have in the Illawarra who are out there, but are just not participating in sports. So we have put together this Talent ID day. We've contacted different schools and different sporting organisations to get as many people as possible to come to this day to showcase the best young Indigenous athletes in the region," Hatch said.
"Athletes that will be on show will be about 13-18 years old. We have got about 85 athletes lined up for the day. So to be honest we're pretty blown away by the amount of athletes willing to put their hand up to want to be involved in a sport of their choosing at that next level."
"We threw out an open invitation to any athletes who are not currently part of any IAS program, so we're looking to target athletes that aren't already part of any pathway and we're looking to take them to the next level in their pathway. We believe we're getting some pretty quality resources here with some superstar kids who have been tapped on the shoulders by their own schools telling them that they should look to go to that next level with their sport and the IAS aims to support them in this."
The IAS Indigenous Talent ID day will commence at 9am and will begin with some fitness testing, which will then be followed by conversations had with Indigenous athletes on how the IAS can best support them and go through what the organisation does as a unit. The day will finish with different sports on show, including rugby union, hockey, basketball and golf.
"It's great to see this program get underway, there's been about three different reincarnations of it and every time Covid or something else has got in the way."
Hatch added he hopes the day at UOW proves to be a success and that there are opportunities for more identification programs in the future.
"At the moment at the IAS we've got 16 Indigenous athletes and we provide them with a lot of support so this program is an opportunity for more Indigenous athletes to join our program and be given the platform to thrive," he said.
"Sometimes athletes need these little extras to get them to that higher level like one-on-one training and we provide that to our athletes."
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