In The Spotlight: Thomas Noakes

Written on the 28 January 2022 by SWSAS

South West Sydney Academy of Sport Wests Future Stars athlete Thomas Noakes (centre) competed in the Athletics NSW&ACT Combined Events Championship held over the weekend of January 15-16, 2022, winning GOLD in the U20 Men Decathlon. 

Noakes, who was awarded the Academy's Athlete of the Year and Chairperson's Award in 2021, returned home for Australia Day, where he was recognised as the 2022 Wollondilly Shire Council Sportsperson of the Year.

Here, Thomas gives us an access all areas pass into his success at the Combined Events Championships.

On the weekend of 15-16th of January, I competed in the Athletics NSW & ACT Combined Events Championships held at the Woden Park Athletics Track in the ACT. I was really looking forward to this competition due to the lack of events held in 2021 as a consequence of COVID and also completing my HSC. I have the aspiration of qualifying and competing in the 2022 World Junior Athletics Championships in Cali, so I was super excited to get my season underway!

Day 1 began at 2pm with the 100m where I ran a personal best (PB). After this was the long jump where my opening jump was a 24cm PB and all subsequent jumps were further than my previous PB with my best jump being 6.42m, a 26cm PB. Shot put was next. My first throw was a standing throw and produced a PB. I then progressed to a slide throw but was unable to put together the perfect throw this comp, so was left with my opening throw being my best. Then there was high jump where I cleared another competition personal best height. But here's where the fun really began.

Due to events running overtime throughout the day, the fourth event (high jump) was cut short as the track lights turned off at 9:30pm. This unfortunately resulted in the 400m being held the next day.

Unlike any decathlon I’ve ever done, Day 2 started with the 400m. This created the conundrum, should I run the 400m fast and suffer with lactic for the rest of the day or jog the 400m and lose points? My coach and I decided that it would be best for me to sit somewhere in the middle and run a slower than usual 400m in order to not hit lactic, however not too slow, to destroy my point score. I was disappointed with my time, but needed to consider the bigger picture and the remaining 5 events.

Normally the first event of Day 2, the 100m hurdles was next and I ran another PB. After this was the discus where I left my big throw till the last round and threw 40m, a big 4m PB! Next pole vault. Although warm up went well, I did not commence jumping until two and a half hours later as I was waiting for my starting height and unfortunately another competitor snapped his pole and ended up in hospital.

I did not perform as well as I would have liked, however I was only 5cm off my PB. Next event was javelin, the event I was most looking forward to and after a good warmup, I threw a huge 4m PB of 56m. The final event of these gruelling two days is the 1500m where I was quite pleased with my result considering it was the 6th event of the day!

I was awarded the Gold Medal for the 2022 NSW U20 Men’ Decathlon and achieved the second highest score for all decathlon competitors (including Opens and Masters). I was very happy with this result as I achieved an overall points score PB. I do however feel the 400m being held on the second rather than the first day negatively impacted my overall points.

This competition gave me a clear idea of where I am at and what areas to improve on for Nationals in March/April 2022 in order to achieve the World Junior Athletics qualifer!

A huge thanks to my coaches, Peter Lawler and Zsuzsanna Olgyay-Szabo for their continued support and wisdom. I am also grateful to Andrew Hreszczuk from Lifestyle and Sports Physiotherapy who has assisted me and for the continued support of the South Western Sydney Academy of Sport (SWSAS) and Athletics Wollongong.

Thomas Noakes

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If you are a current or former athlete of the Academy, and have had success at a recent championship or event, we would love to hear your story, in your own words. 

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