Did you know the south-west is home to the fastest 100 metres under 13 athletes in the state?
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In March, Warrnambool Little Athletics Club's Jesse Suter and Grace Kelly claimed gold in the boys' and girls' under 13 100m at the Little Athletics Victoria state championships.
A former international athlete believes the south-west has plenty more untapped athletics potential.
He's doing his bit to be prepared for the next person who wants unleash their hidden talent.
Warrnambool-based athletics coach Jeremy Dixon has received his highest coaching role and is keen to share his new-found wisdom with south-west athletes.
Dixon, a former New Zealand sprinter, has been selected as the assistant sprints coach for the Athletics Victoria Target Talent Program.
"It's a great opportunity to liaise with some of Australia's top coaches and bring these insights and learnings back down to the south-west, helping to build confidence that we are on the pulse of the most contemporary training practices and are not overlooked for opportunities," he said.
Dixon will help run a series of high-performance sessions to assist some of state's most promising young sprinters.
All the action will take place at Melbourne's Lakeside Stadium during the next six months.
Dixon is not the only one from the south-west involved in the target talent program.
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Terang's Caytlyn Sharp, 17, has been selected for long jump.
Sharp, a T20 athlete, broke her own Australian under 18 record for long jump with a leap of 4.51 metres at the Athletics Australia track and field national championships in Sydney earlier this year.
She was competing in the open division para long jump when she broke the record.
Dixon believes Sharp will also gain valuable insights from the program she can bring back to the south-west.
The athletics mentor also said the target talent program went beyond the track.
He said there would be discussions about mental health, resilience, injury prevention and nutrition.
Dixon spent 12 years in Melbourne before moving to Warrnambool with his young family at the start of 2017.
He has been coaching on and off for 10 years but has stepped it up in the past two years.
He is a South West Academy of Sport board member and runs its functional athletics' coaching program.
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