Williamstown Athletics Club young gun Celeste Mucci reigned supreme at the under-18 Australian heptathlon championships in Brisbane last week.
The heptathlon involves seven individual events over two days and was right up Mucci’s alley, given her ability to perform strongly across a range of events.
The first day included the 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200m.
The second brought the long jump, javelin and the 800m, with points awarded for each event and the combined highest total deciding the winner.
Mucci won four of the seven events, placed second in two and third in the final event.
She started the competition in great form, blitzing the field in the 100m hurdles to win in 13.60sec.
She was second in the high jump with a leap of 1.68m, clearly won the shot put with 12.84m and in a close race won the 200m in 25.45sec.
After the first day, Mucci was in the lead with a points score of 3429 – 92 ahead of the next best.
The second day started with the long jump, one of Mucci’s favourite events, where she won by 20cm with a leap of 5.76m.
Mucci secured second in the javelin with a throw of 36.66m.
The final event of the competition was the 800m, where Mucci crossed the line third.
This was less than two seconds behind the leading runner.
And it was enough to see Mucci bring home the title with 5430 points from New Zealand’s Phoebe Richards (5163) and Queensland’s Ashlee Stieler (4933).
Mucci’s performance met the qualification standards for the IAAF World Youth Championships to be conducted in Colombia in July.
Not only did she qualify in the heptathlon but also in the 100m hurdles.
Her results produced an equal club record in the 100m hurdles and new records in the shot put, long jump and the javelin.
