Awards and trophies for little athletes
Celebrating achievements and recognising club champions
At the end of the track and field season, we present trophies and medals to our standout athletes at the annual general meeting and trophy day.
We offer awards for athletes who:
- earn the most points in their age group,
- achieve the highest number of personal bests,
- score the most points in specific event categories,
- show strong coachability, and
- display excellent sportsmanship.
How are our award recipients determined?
Our performance‑based awards use a points system.
Like State and National multi‑event competitions (Pentathlon, Heptathlon, Decathlon), points come from how fast an athlete runs or how far they jump or throw – not from their finishing place. An athlete can win several events but still miss out on the overall gold medal if their performances aren’t as strong in terms of measurable results.
At Inglewood, points are calculated using formulas that compare each result to the age‑group centre record. The closer an athlete is to that record, the more points they earn. This means awards reflect performance quality, not placings.
Why does this matter?
Take Amy and Emily. They’ve completed five events. Amy won four of them, but Emily still scored higher overall. That’s because Emily stayed close to Amy in those four events – and then delivered a much stronger hurdles result, earning significantly more points.
| 200m | Shot Put | 80mH | Long Jump | 800m | TOTAL POINTS | |
| Amy | 32.64 | 5.77 | 19.19 | 3.53 | 02:57.8 | |
| Points | 313 | 257 | 81 | 206 | 386 | 1243 |
| Emily | 33.57 | 5.28 | 16.61 | 3.52 | 03:09.0 | |
| Points | 262 | 226 | 268 | 204 | 286 | 1246 |
What can affect the trophy outcome?
Athletes earn more points when they take part in more events. If they regularly miss certain events – like always skipping the walk – they score zero for those events, which lowers their overall total.
We understand that life happens and athletes can’t always attend every meet. To keep things fair, we remove each athlete’s lowest one or two scoring days (depending on the season length). This means an “off week” or a missed meet doesn’t hurt their total too much. But if they miss more than two weeks, any extra missed weeks stay in their score as zero points.
For event‑category awards (like Intermediate Girls Sprints or Junior Boys Throws), results sometimes use records from different age groups. This can create a small bias if one age‑group record is easier to reach than another. In practice, though, the difference is tiny – most of our records are tough to beat anyway.
Questions about awards and trophies?
If you have any questions about the awards, trophies or the trophy day, please email us at admin@inglewoodlac.com.au or have a chat to one of our committee members at training.