TODD Nelson has had to face more challenges than most of his fellow Year 3 students at All Saints’ College, so after he claimed a state cross country title on Friday his class-mates gave him a rock star reception.
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Nelson was born profoundly deaf and since he was 13 months old has had a cochlear implant in his right ear and a hearing aid in his left.
He had to remove both those devices on Friday as he lined up at the NSW PSSA Cross Country Championships at Eastern Creek in the 8-9 years division for students with a disability.
But his mother Kay said that helped him focus and her son went on to claim the gold medal. It was a win that proved extremely popular among the All Saints’ staff and students.
“It has been overwhelming the support he has had ... he was treated like an absolute celebrity when he got back to school on Friday afternoon,” she said.
“Todd’s life has been a bit like a cross country. There was the panic and madness at the start when he was born, the uphill sections have been really tough and long, but the downhill sections have been quite quick.
“He was just on top of the world to win the gold medal.”
It was a solid performance at the Combined Independent Schools cross country carnival that earned Nelson a place at the PSSA titles, the young talent having to run against students older than himself.
He needed to cover the two-kilometre course in less than 12 minutes and did it easily, clocking a time of 10 minutes, nine seconds.
“We were just blown away with how he ran at CIS,” Kay Nelson said.
“He got a silver medal, but he also had to run a time in order to qualify for this [PSSA] event.
“Because at CIS they don’t have the numbers, the races for AWD kids [athletes with a disability] are a bit different. The kid who beat him at CIS was actually 12.
“He was really happy to run second on the day for that CIS race, so to go to the next level was amazing.”
After booking his place at the PSSA championships, Todd Nelson put in plenty of work to prepare.
He trained every second day, his brothers and sisters as well as All Saints’ junior school captain Ben Cant helping him out along the way.
At the PSSA level Nelson was back in his 8-9 years age group, but had to cover around 250 metres more than he did at the CIS carnival.
That proved no problem, Nelson clocking a time of 10 minutes, 35 seconds to claim gold.
He was not the only local student to attend the titles – Bathurst was well represented in both the boys’ and girls’ events.
Ethan Comerford (Holy Family), Gabriel Langdon and Norbu Gyatso (Bathurst Public) and Kelso Public pair Marshall Beale and Braiden McPharlane contested boys events.
Hope Coombes (Assumption), Machayla Hayes (Bathurst West), Emilee Curran (Raglan) and Miranda Campbell (Bathurst Public) contested girls events, Coombes placing eighth in her race.
