Ready for the new athletics season – Jaxon Woolley is aiming for the Commonwealth Games. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
Te Puke para-athlete Jaxon Woolley is looking to sprint his way to next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Woolley holds New Zealand records in the para-athletics T38 classification at 100m and 200m, and his 100m time ranks him 19th in the world and fifth fastest of T38 athletes from Commonwealth countries.
If he maintains that position, he’s nailed on for a place in Scotland, and that’s the goal for Woolley this summer.
T38 is a disability sport classification for people with cerebral palsy and includes people who have co-ordination impairments.
Born with polymicrogyria, Woolley has cerebral palsy, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, Worster-Drought syndrome (cerebral palsy of his mouth and throat muscles) and epilepsy.
Last year dystonia, caused by the polymicrogyria, was diagnosed.
He will start his summer campaign later this month.
Last summer he managed to run the 100m in less than 12 seconds.
In setting his personal best of 11.91 seconds at the New Zealand championships, he also, for the first time, beat Mitch Joynt, who has since competed at the world championships.
With percentages coming into play in para-athletes to account for the different categories, Woolley was not only first across the line, but he also beat Joynt on the percentages.
“Jaxon used to train with Mitch and it’s always been his goal to beat him,” his mother Tash Bowden said.
Over winter, Woolley has been training with coach Kerry Hill, sometimes at the track, other times on hills at various parks, and has also been training in the gym.
His summer schedule will include the four meets of The Summer Circuit that attracts top national and international athletes, and the Daikin Night of 5s meeting in Auckland.
The national championships in March are also in Auckland.
At the end of the season, he will head to Darwin for the Oceania Area Games and Bowden said they’re considering the possibility of going to the Australian championships in Sydney in April.
Fundraising for the Oceania Games, and the possibility of going to the Commonwealth Games, has begun.
At the Oceania Games, Woolley will compete in the 100m, 200m, 400m and long jump, but only the 100m for T38 athletes will be run in Glasgow, which stepped in to host the games when Victoria pulled out, but with a reduced number of events.
With the top six Commonwealth athletes expected to be selected for the games, Bowden is confident Woolley will be among them.
“It’s the end of the European track season and [North] American season, so they’ve finished. So the Commonwealth athletes, their rankings shouldn’t change that much. We are just hoping no Australians come out of the woodwork.”
Woolley has a full season to go and is confident he can beat his personal best time.
He feels he could go as low as 11.5 seconds.
While he doesn’t hold the national open men’s 400m record, Woolley held, lost, then regained the under-20 record last summer.
“It’s not his favourite [event], but his record was beaten by another T38 athlete from Timaru [Finn Tregurtha-Nairn] last year at the secondary Schools [championship]. Jaxon came back and smashed it at the nationals.”
Bowden said it’s interesting to watch Woolley run the 400m.
“When he does 100 or 200, you can’t see the cerebral palsy that much when he runs. But when he gets to the 400, he often gets to the point where the muscles just all contract and he pretty much falls over the finish line and can’t move for a bit – so the longer distances really take a toll on the muscles.”
Woolley was close to reaching the qualifying time for this year’s world championships, and so has longer-term goals of reaching that event and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“He’s still young enough to make it to two or three para-Olympics,” Bowden said.
Woolley said his favourite part of the sport is racing and winning.
As Woolley grew up, he was part of an athletics club at Riverhead, played rugby, competed in BMX and had done a few park runs, but hadn’t done any formal athletics until he competed at the Halberg Games in 2018.
Woolley isn’t the only member of his family to have been successful recently, with his sister Mercedes Whittaker having won the girls’ athletes with disabilities cross country race at last month’s AIMS Games.
She also qualified for the national gymnastics championships in the 11-12 years tumbling section where she finished 11th.