Athlete Profile: Ashlyn Blackstock
Ashlyn Blackstock is a rising star in the Little Athletics community, recently celebrating her
16th birthday Ashlyn has big goals for the future and is well on her way to achieving them.
In late 2019 the opportunity to throw with World Champion and Australian record holder
Dani Stevens arose. The competition was the week before the Australian All Schools
Championships in Perth; however, Ashlyn would not let the opportunity to throw with her
idol pass up.
“My coach said just rest you don’t want to put yourself off, then it was posted that Dani was
throwing and I said, ‘I have to go – I can’t miss this.”
A talented thrower, Ashlyn is the U15 LANSW State Champion in the Discus and Shot Put,
along with being the reigning Australian All Schools U16 Champion in both events. Ashlyn
represented NSW as a member of the 2017 ALAC team, walking away from the
championships in Sydney with a gold medal in the shot put and a bronze in the discus.
After all these achievements 2020 was looking to be a big year for the Eastlakes Little
Athlete.
In January, Ashlyn travelled to the Athletics ACT State Championships and competed in the
U18 Women’s Discus Championship. Throwing a huge distance of 50.13M, surpassing the
Australian World Junior Qualifying (U20s) standard of 49.25m at just 15 years of age.
The World U20 Championships scheduled to be held in Nairobi, Kenya this July has been
indefinitely postponed. The future for a lot of these young athletes remains unclear. However,
Ashlyn is young enough that this is not the last international junior competition she will be
eligible to compete at. Ashlyn will be eligible to compete in the 2022 World Junior
Championships with the location and dates still to be advised.
At the 19/20 Region 2 Championships Ashlyn again took the gold in the shot put and discus
setting a new region record of 45.09M. In March Ashlyn took the silver medal behind former
Sutherland Little Athlete Sally Shokry in the NSW Open Championships with an impressive
46.64M throw.
Ashlyn set her goals on breaking the U17 state discus record of 48.65M. The record is the
second oldest U17 Girls record standing, set in 2012 by Taylah Sengul. Although this goal
was not achieved in the 19/20 season, Ashlyn falls on the young side of the U17 age group
and will be able to attempt the record next season!
