He's only been coaching him for a few short months but Jay Stone already sees a lot of potential in Zac Bailey.
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The Timbumburi Year 6 student is sharpening up his spikes for the School Sport Australia Track and Field Championships where he will race the 11yrs 200m after winning silver at the NSW PSSA championships.
It will be Bailey's first time competing at the national level, but in Stone's opinion probably not the last.
"He's got a lot of potential," he said.
It's only recently they have really been focusing on sprinting.
"Because he's a bit of an all rounder (he also qualified for state in the high jump, shot put, 100m and 1500m), it took us a little bit of a while to figure out what events he was kind of best at," Stone said.
Having made it to state for cross-country, initially the thought was he was more of a distance runner.
But after seeing some of the "pretty impressive times" he was producing in the sprint sessions, Stone started thinking that sprinting "might be where his true potential sort of lies".
That said, the silver medal was a bit of a surprise, at least for Bailey.
"I didn't expect to win a medal," he said.
The goal was to make the semi-final.
But after winning his heat, he then placed second in his semi to earn a lane in the final, which he actually ended up running twice after some drama at the start.
As Stone explained there were two false starts which led to one of the runners being disqualified, and a bit of a "kerfuffle".
Not something Bailey has really experienced before, he said he got a bit distracted by it all, and nervous of breaking, and ended up coming fourth.
But then the team of the boy that was disqualified protested the decision and after reviewing the live stream it was shown that they had disqualified the wrong runner. So after some deliberation officials decided to run the race again.
This time round Bailey was a lot more switched on and focused, and clocked 27.11secs to finish second.
It was a nice reward for his hard work and a spur to keep on training hard.
He also came home with a new personal best in his 200 of 27.06secs, and also bettered his pb in the 100 and high jump.
"It was good, and good to represent the school and the zone," Bailey said.
It was a big few days.
He went virtually straight from the track to the basketball court, playing with Timbumburi at the state basketball knockout finals on the Friday. They went on to finish third, winning their first game before going down to a strong Scone team in the semi-finals.
A bit of a multi-talented sportsman Bailey plays for the Tamworth Thunderbolts under-12s, as well as locally. He also plays soccer and touch football.
He is looking forward to the nationals and testing himself against the best in the country.
"I think it will be very tough up there," he said.
One of the things he has been really working with Stone on is his starts.
"It is a bit of a weakness for him," Stone admitted.
"He's quite a tall boy.
"The taller athletes do take a little bit longer to get up to speed.
"Once he's up he's got that strength with his stride length to sort of run away from some of the smaller boys. So the quicker we can get him up to speed the better."
The nationals will be held in Brisbane from November 17 to 21 November.
Bailey will race on the 18th.
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