Jumping for Joye

BRIGHT FUTURE: Hannah Joye has all the makings to become an elite track and feild athlete.

HER classmates are already lining up to get her autograph, but athletics' rising star Hannah Joye admits she's embarrassed by all the attention.

At just 14 years of age, the 175cm tall Joye, who attends Forest Lake College (FLC), is regarded as one of the state's hottest prospects.

A triple bronze-medallist at last year's National All Schools Track and Field championships in Tasmania, Joye is gearing up for another tireless and hopefully successful athletics campaign, beginning with school regionals next month.

Albeit these are Joye's salad days in her athletics career, her school buddies already sense they are witnessing a star in the making.

You even get the same feeling from her teacher, Richard Haines, even though the head of sport co-ordinator tried to downplay Joye's potential, for fear of placing too much pressure on his gifted pupil.

But if you accept the hype surrounding Joye, both the Olympics and Commonwealth Games will be in her reach once she's developed.

And while the compliments and praise doesn't worry Joye in the least - such is her laid-back nature - the year nine student refuses to let it influence her state of mind.

“I don't have the motivation to compete at that level (Olympics and Commonwealth Games), I'm too young to think about it,” she said.

“I'm sure the motivation will grow once I get older, but I'm the type of person who just likes to go with the flow.”

It's at this moment you remember that you're talking to a fresh-faced 14-year-old and not a fully-fledged athlete.

But as her teacher aptly puts it, Joye's performances to date are “way beyond her years.”

Since starting athletics as a seven-year-old, Joye has always shown promise.

Haines said Joye was already getting the plaudits before he had arrived at FLC.

“I heard about Hannah a lot before I got here. I was told ‘wait until you see her do athletics, she's like a thoroughbred' and it was true,” he said.

“She has excelled in her school events, TAS (The Associated Schools) then for Met West – she's just been dominant in every event.”

At last year's The Associated Schools (TAS) Red Division athletics carnival, she proved she was an all-round good track and field competitor by winning 10 events and breaking three records.

She inherited her lightning speed from her Aunt Bindee, who represented Australia on numerous occasions.

But it is in the jumping events that Joye excels the most, especially high jump.

At FLC's annual school athletics carnival last month, Joye cleared the bar at 176cm. A score which would have eclipsed some of the competitors who recently competed in the high jump final of the IAAF Women's World Junior (under-18) Championships in Canada.

Even more impressive, the 176cm jump was a 9cm improvement from the score that won Joye a bronze medal at the National All Schools Track and Field championships, just nine months ago.

For Joye though, the bright light at the end of the tunnel - the Olympics or Commonwealth Games - is just a speck, barely visible from where she is standing.

Joye understands she has a long way to go and right now her only goal is to continue to improve.

“I love it (athletics) and watching myself improve and grow as an athlete is what I love most,” she said.

“I just want to do the best I can and see where it takes me.”

Joye, who is also an accomplished netball player, is an incessant worker on the training paddock.

But to help lift her performances, Joye has been using her school's new bio-mechanical software that allows her to analyse and study every take off, step and leap she makes during practice.

As a result the modest teen is faster, stronger and by her own admission more confident than ever.

Joye, along with the school's most promising athletes will attend an athletics camp at Runaway Super Sports Centre next month, where she will receive high-level coaching ahead of the school's TAS athletics campaign, which will see FLC contest the top division for the first time in its history.

BRIGHT FUTURE: Hannah Joye has all the makings to become an elite track and field athlete.