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The 2016 shortlist for the WAIS Junior Athlete of the Year Award is dominated by women’s sport with all six athletes (five nominations) in the running for the title, female scholarship holders.

The impressive cast, includes Olympians, Youth World Champions and an exciting mix of current talent and future potential, with the Award set to be announced at the weekend’s WAIS Annual Dinner at HBF Stadium.

2016 has seen a number of successes for young Western Australian athletes with many of them going beyond expectations and taking the next step in their elite sporting development.

The WAIS Junior Athlete of the Year Award recognises those young athletes who have achieved excellence within their sport during the 2015/2016 voting period (1 Oct 2015 – 30 Sep 2016).

5-year-old Nikita Hains is a WAIS diving athlete who in 2016, emerged as a serious talent for the future in Australian diving.

Competing against the best divers Australia has to offer, Hains came away with an outstanding seventh place finish in the 10m platform final at the National Championships, which also doubled as Olympic selection trials. Remarkably, in the semifinal stage, Hains posted the third highest score, showing she has the talent to mix it with the nation’s best, despite her relative short journey in the sport, compared with the likes of triple Olympian Melissa Wu.

In addition to this, she won a gold medal in the 10m platform event at the Amsterdam Cup and finished sixth in the same discipline at the International Youth Diving Meet in Dresden, Germany against world class junior field.

Cyclist Jade Haines had a highly successful 2016 campaign, debuting at the Junior Track World Championships in Switzerland, where she won a silver medal in the individual pursuit, finishing just 0.8 second off world record pace. Haines then combined with Victorian Ruby Roseman-Gannon to win the exhibition Maddison race at the culmination of the Championships.

Haines was also spectacular at the Junior National Championships, winning two gold, one silver and one bronze in a strong all-round display.

Tamsin Cook is a 17-year-old WAIS swimmer who made her Australian senior swim team debut earlier this year at the Rio Olympic Games.

In Brazil, Cook sensationally anchored the Australian women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team to a silver medal, where she went head to head with American swimming legend Katie Ledecky.

In addition to this Cook, who is the reigning WAIS Junior Athlete of the Year after her dual Junior World Championship titles in 2015, finished sixth in the Olympic final of the women’s 400m freestyle event after achieving a personal best in her heat, to qualify for the swim.

The fourth shortlisted athletes in the Junior Athlete of the Year field are sailing duo,Annabelle Davies and Hayley Clark who had a great campaign in winning a World Youth Title at the 29er World Championships in Medemblik, Netherlands. The 29er class, is the feeder class to the Olympic standard 49erFX.

Heading into the final day of the regatta seemingly out of gold medal contention, the duo capitalized on a black flag (disqualification) for leaders Poland, to storm home for victory and a youth world title.

Zoe Thomson is another WAIS sailing athlete who earlier this year, took out the title of world champion at the Laser Radial Youth World Championships in Ireland after beating out a 76 boat field.

As a reflection of her performance, Thomson has earned selection for the 2017 ISAF Youth World Championships where she will compete for Australia in New Zealand this December.

The Junior Athlete of the Year will be presented at the WAIS Annual Dinner on Saturday October 15, along with awards for Athlete, Program and Coach of the Year.

Media references

Originally written by Annika Lee-Jones and published on the WAIS Archive.

Mia Herriman

Marketing, Communications and Events

UWA Sport Pty Ltd

6488 4309

[email protected]