Congratulations to Heleina Young on being awarded the inaugural Griffith University Oceania Australia Foundation Athletics Business Scholarship.
Heleina has been creating waves in the athletics arena around the region and caught the eye of OAA when she became the fastest high school athlete in Fiji to go under 12 seconds at the 2018 Coca-Cola Games. A feat which has her sitting No.2 on the Fiji all-time list behind Makelesi Bulikiobo.
Since then, Heleina has continued to threaten the dominance of Papua New Guinea female sprinters at various regional meets, more recently at the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa. She is fast becoming a household name for Pacific sprinting. Heleina has shown a lot of promise for Fiji and the region.
Oceania Athletics Association (OAA) High- Performance coordinator, Allison Fairweather said in a statement that the panel of judges was unanimous in their decision and they were very impressed with Heleina’s conduct throughout her interview.
“Athletics Fiji can be very proud of Heleina, her application was outstanding, and she had obviously done her homework regarding the scholarship and was well prepared for the phone interview.”
Alison Fairweather
Given her outstanding track record of being able to balance her role as a national athlete as well as the expectations of being a student, it’s no surprise that Heleina was awarded the scholarship.
We look forward to welcoming Heleina to Australia and our training centre to commence this exciting opportunity.