Seven FAST athletes will wear ACT colours on the national stage later this year after earning selection for the 2026 School Sport Australia 10–12 Years Track & Field Championships in Melbourne.
Finnley Knight, Jake Andonovski, Jungone Kang, Kudi Mutumbu, Lucy Porter, Scarlett Taylor and Milla Golack have all been selected to represent the ACT, with the group covering events from the 100m and 200m through to jumps, shot put, 800m and the combined event.
The Championships will be held from 29 November to 3 December at Lakeside Stadium in Albert Park, bringing together selected school athletes from around Australia. School Sport Australia confirms that this is not a direct-entry competition: athletes compete as members of teams selected by their respective state or territory school sport associations. The first championship bulletin has track and field beginning on Monday 30 November, with competition continuing across several sessions before the final session and closing ceremony on Thursday 3 December.
For FAST, having seven athletes selected is something we are enormously pleased to celebrate. More importantly, each of those seven has arrived at this opportunity through their own developing athletics story.
Seven Athletes, Plenty of Variety
There is a strong sprint presence in the FAST group heading to Melbourne. Finnley Knight has been selected for the 100m, while Jungone Kang and Kudi Mutumbu will both contest the 100m and 200m. Lucy Porter has earned selection over 200m, while Milla Golack will race both sprint events as well as competing in the long jump.
The field events are strongly represented too. Scarlett Taylor will contest both the long jump and high jump, while Milla adds long jump to her sprint program.
Then there is Jake Andonovski, whose selection in the combined event will require perhaps the broadest skill set of the group, with competition across the 100m, 800m, long jump and shot put.
Together, the seven selections provide a nice snapshot of the young athletes we see developing through FAST. Some love running fast in a straight line. Some jump. Some combine running with field events. Others are still discovering which parts of athletics they enjoy most.
At their age, we think that discovery is important.
From Canberra to a National Stage
National representation is a substantial achievement for a young athlete.
There is something special about receiving the ACT uniform, travelling interstate with a representative team and discovering that the athletes standing beside you have gone through similar selection processes in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and elsewhere around Australia.
The ACT, NSW, NT, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria are among the participating teams for the 2026 Track & Field Championships. For our seven FAST athletes, Lakeside Stadium will therefore provide an opportunity to experience competition beyond the familiar Canberra environment and test themselves alongside some of the country’s best school-aged athletes.
The championship experience is also bigger than an individual race or jump. The official program includes an opening ceremony on Sunday evening, three track and field competition sessions across Monday to Wednesday, a championship team experience and a final competition session on Thursday morning.
Those experiences matter.
Years from now, an athlete may remember the result they achieved in Melbourne. They may just as readily remember travelling with their teammates, putting on ACT colours, walking into Lakeside Stadium or making friends with athletes they had previously only seen standing in another lane.
The Road to Selection
For several of these athletes, the pathway to Melbourne has been visible through the school athletics season.
At the recent ACT Primary Championships we saw FAST athletes competing across a remarkably broad range of events. Kudi collected second places in the 100m and 200m. Scarlett shared first place in the high jump and finished second in the long jump. Milla finished second in both the 100m and long jump and third over 200m, while Jungone took bronze in the 200m after also finishing fourth in the 100m.
Lucy earned a 200m bronze among her events, while Finnley and Jake both competed across track and field events before earning their places in the ACT team.
Those performances now lead somewhere new.
Between selection and Melbourne, however, there are still more than two months of development available. We don’t see that period as an opportunity to suddenly turn seven children into different athletes because they are going to Nationals. It is an opportunity to continue doing the things that helped them earn selection in the first place, while progressively preparing them for the demands of their events and the experience of a national championship.
What Nationals Does — and Doesn’t — Tell Us
We think this distinction is particularly important when celebrating successful junior athletes.
Being selected for Nationals tells us something meaningful: these seven athletes have performed extremely well at this point in their development and have earned the opportunity to represent the ACT.
That deserves recognition.
What it doesn’t tell us is what any of them will ultimately become.
Our work through the FAST ACT Development Study, examining historical performances of young ACT athletes over time, continues to reinforce just how differently children develop. Some athletes are already outstanding performers at 10, 11 or 12 and continue to be outstanding performers as they get older. Others emerge much later. Growth, maturation, coaching, training history, other sports, motivation, injury and simply whether a young person continues to enjoy athletics can all influence what happens next.
National selection at this age should therefore be something to celebrate rather than something a child has to carry.
We want these seven athletes to be proud of what they have achieved without feeling that it now defines them.
FAST Kids Growing Into FAST Performance
There is another reason this particular group means a lot to FAST.
Our approach to younger athletes has never been about creating miniature senior sprinters. Through FAST Kids and FAST Accelerate and our wider development environment, we want young athletes to learn how to move, run, jump and compete while retaining the enjoyment that brought them to sport in the first place.
As athletes develop, FAST Performance allows that work to become progressively more individual. Technique becomes more refined, training becomes more event-specific and athletes gradually learn more about preparation, recovery and competition.
Seven ACT selections across sprints, jumps, middle-distance running, shot put and combined events is a pleasing reflection of that pathway.
It also reminds us that Running Excellence can look different for different athletes.
For Finnley, Jake, Jungone, Kudi, Lucy, Scarlett and Milla, the next version of it will involve an ACT uniform and a trip to Melbourne.
Melbourne Awaits
There is plenty of training still to come before anyone walks into Lakeside Stadium.
Some of these athletes will compete again before Nationals. There will be good sessions and ordinary ones, school commitments, other sports and all the normal things that form part of being a young athlete.
FAST will continue doing what we have been doing: helping each athlete develop appropriately for where they are now.
Then, at the end of November, seven members of our FAST community will get an experience very few young athletes receive.
They will represent their Territory at a national championship.
We hope they run fast. We hope they jump far and high. We hope Jake enjoys the challenge of four very different events. We’d love to see personal bests and great performances.
Most of all, we hope they look around Lakeside Stadium at some point and appreciate what they have already achieved simply by getting there.
Congratulations Finnley, Jake, Jungone, Kudi, Lucy, Scarlett and Milla.
Canberra to Melbourne. FAST to Nationals.
Enjoy every bit of it. 🖤❤️💙💛
FAST Kids | FAST Performance | Centre of Running Excellence
Running Excellence grows.
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