On Wednesday, the Lismore App published a story about Invercauld House being nominated as a finalist for the 2023 North Coast Tourism Awards.

Paul Moretti President of Lismore Little Athletics got in touch saying they have been nominated for Regional Centre of the Year for the Little Athletics NSW annual awards held in Sydney this Saturday, July 15. Another worthy positive local news story.

To feel good, you have to highlight the bad which in most cases in Lismore is not difficult.

Lismore Little Athletics is held at Riverview Park off Union Street in South Lismore so you can imagine how it fared during last year's February flood.

"Everything was lost, our canteen, fridges, pie warmers, our club room which held our historic paperwork, uniforms and registration packs and our shed that stored all our athletics gear like long jump mats, high jump mats, starting guns, flags and poles," Paul told the Lismore App.

They were able to salvage the harder and more resilient items like javelin, shotput and discuss but the losses were still around the $75,000 mark.

In a twist of fate, the conditions of the grounds and track are the best they have been for some years due to the flood.

"It was soggy for a while but the flood did the grounds some good. The water was full of nutrients so once it settled the fields have been nice and plush," Paul explained.

Through grants and donations from other clubs and LANSW, Lismore was able to operate its season from October 2022 until March 2023. It wasn't easy as it still had no power, no canteen, no club room and one small toilet (the others were condemned), however, it was the largest number of participants in five years.

"We think this was due to a combination of Covid and flood so parents were looking to get their kids outside and do something. We are one of a few summer sports and the winter sports didn't have much of a season. Plus we are pretty cheap at $135 for a season. Athletics is not an expensive sport."

"A few families lost everything so we helped them where we could with registration fees, uniforms and other areas too."

Lismore is now looking to host the Zone Championships on December 2 & 3 this year which will bring in a lot of families from around Northern NSW to compete. The Riverview Park facilities need a great deal of work to be completed before then. Lismore City Council is currently looking a the scope of work with Bennet Constructions standing by to start the rebuild.

"We can live without a clubhouse and a canteen because food vans can cover that but I need the discuss cages to be repaired," Paul said, "Bennet's are confident it can be done and if we do I'll be happy. We only got power three weeks ago."

"We have a strong group of athletes in this area with 22 from the club that go to the state titles. Our issue is we are so far away from everything to be recognised, we're in no-mans land between NSW and Queensland. We try and do the best we can for our kids"

The position of being in no-mans land may be about to change. As the saying goes, "If the Mountain won't go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the Mountain”.

There are discussions between Lismore Little Athletics, LANSW and Southern Cross University to build a fully synthetic athletics track somewhere in Lismore. This would set up Lismore as being a Regional Athletics Centre capable of holding world-class events.

"All major championships are held on synthetic tracks, the state titles are always held in Sydney. Every school in the region could use it for their school athletics carnivals and we could hold bigger events, maybe even attract some Olympic athletes leading into the Brisbane Olympic Games. Athletes could come and live and train here with Brisbane only three hours away."

"We feel it will generate an athletics boom in this area. This would benefit not only kids in little athletics but people involved in senior athletics. We are the only club between Coffs and the Tweed who run senior athletics plus it could be part of the Masters Games."

Another benefit would be for the parents of athletes that compete in Regional and State Championships are paying anywhere between $1500 and $2000 per trip so there would be some travel savings locally.

There is a lot of upside for the future of Lismore Little Athletics.

The new season will start in October for around about 130-140 kids. Paul Moretti says to keep an eye on the Facebook page for announcements.

Good luck tomorrow night in Sydney for the Regional Centre Of The Year award.