The 12-year-old is now a national bronze medallist after being placed third in the 12yrs girls’ high jump. 

It could have easily been a medal of another colour though, with Hewitt denied gold on a countback.

The same thing happened to her at the State Championships back in October.

Then she picked up silver.

Up at Brisbane, Hewitt, a girl from Victoria and the girl who had beaten her at the state championships all cleared 1.51m.

They then attempted 1.54m but weren’t successful.

The countback put Hewitt in the bronze position, with the other two girls sharing gold.

She was still pretty stoked to bring home bronze.

“It was my first time going to nationals,” she said.

“I wasn’t expecting anything. My coach just said go and have fun.”

“I did want to get a pb.”

“I didn’t, but I was close to my pb, only 1cm off,” she said.

She set that at the state carnival at 1.52m, which at the time was a 7cm pb.

Hewitt also picked up silver in the 800m sprint medley.

For that, one runner runs 100m, two 200m and the last runner 300m.

She ran one of the 200m legs and was the second runner.

It was Hewitt’s last chance to compete at the primary nationals. She finishes at St Edward’s this year and credits a lot of her improvement to being more diligent with her training.

“I’ve been training a bit harder,” she said.

On top of training with her dad, and doing a lot of jumping with weights on her legs to strengthen up her legs, she’s been doing regular Saturday sessions with Julia Scott.

Her focus is now on the Little Athletics representative season, starting with the zone championships.

They’ll be held in Tamworth next weekend (December 14/15).

Hewitt will compete in at least the high jump and 100m. She’s not sure what else.

The carnival is a qualifier for the regionals and then, following that, state.

Hewitt would love to qualify for those.

“I want to get as far as I can,” she said.