THEY have had their lesson in resilience, but now junior athletes involved with the Western Region Academy of Sport are looking forward to their normal programs.
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Just as most sporting associations have been on hold and dealing with the cancellation of events during the coronavirus, so too has WRAS.
So when the state government announced on Tuesday that community sport for those aged 18 and under would be permitted as of July 1, it came as welcomed news for WRAS executive director Candice Boggs.
"It's very exciting, it's really good that has come out," she said.
"To have the all clear and some clear guidelines around training and sports, given we work with a number of sports, that is a real positive.
"We've adapted to the situation, we've offered a lot of our athletes online zoom webinars and talked about how to be more resilient and how to adapt their training.
"They've been doing well, but I know they're itching to get back out on the court, or the bike or the course."
The 2020 intake for WRAS was around 120 athletes and all of them were impacted by the coronavirus shutdown.
Though many squads were nearing the end of their programs - they run from November to April - they still missed out on an annual highlight.
"When the coronavirus really hit in terms of restrictions in Australia and New South Wales, most of our sports programs were at their very end, which was a bit of a silver lining," Boggs explained.
"But all the athletes did miss out on competing at the Academy Games, which was really upsetting because it is one chance where they get to wear WRAS colours and represent the academy and compete against the other academies in New South Wales.
"So that was unfortunate, but it was a massive event and we were just way over restrictions.
"But golf, cycling and netball are a bit different with us, they progress beyond April and are almost 12 month programs with us."
As Boggs indicated, the netball, cycling and golf squad members have felt the impact of the shutdown the most.
"It is tough because a lot of their major events were cancelled, the cyclists they were just about to head off to the national championships when this happened," she said.
"So I really feel for the kids who are at that level, it put a really big bookmark in their goals at the moment, but hopefully it is teaching some good resilience amongst the group."
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Boggs and her staff and now working on resuming those three programs, with a golf training session - something workable under current guidelines - planned for June.
With indoor facilities able to operate as of June 13, albeit with social distancing restrictions, Boggs also hopes to get the netballers back in training.
"Having the restrictions lifted for indoor facilities is fantastic news for our netball squad, we should be able to get them back training safely," she said.
"I think Netball NSW is still limiting training to 10-a-court, but we can work around that.
"To have access to facilities now, that is going to be a big relief to the kids that have been sitting at home and our coaches as well, they are so keen to get back out and start working with the kids."
