NIAS: Athletes being catered to through online initiative

As the lockdown continues into its third week for regional NSW, NIAS has been providing content each week for athletes through its online communication tool Team App.

Unfortunately, inopportune timing meant the lockdown began a few days prior to NIAS's annual awards night for its basketball, hockey, golf, Lone Star and rugby league programs.

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Whilst the awards night was set to be the final component for most of these programs, the online content NIAS has provided over the last three weeks has been released to all academy athletes.

This has been done to ensure each individual maintains the opportunity and motivation to maintain their sporting skills, fitness and activity levels. Their mental health is also factored into the initiative.

Specific content has been provided for athletes to develop knowledge into ways they can effectively maintain their mental health, alongside the inclusion of specifically designed home-training strength and conditioning sessions.

This includes workout sessions that are done with little or no equipment.

NIAS's sports programs manager, Brent Hartley, said: "It is very important that we, as an academy, maintain engagement with our athletes and provide meaningful content to help them continue - not only with their fitness, but in staying mentally healthy during tough times."

Combined with education, and strength and conditioning support, NIAS has also been partaking in a STRAVA challenge with fellow regional academies of sport from across the state.

With the luxury of technology, the academies have been challenging participating athletes every week to get active and complete as many activities as they can through STRAVA (activities include swimming, running and cycling).

Every week results are tallied, and the leading academy announced.

For two consecutive weeks, NIAS has placed third on the leaderboard.

Earlier this week, NIAS athletics athlete Caleb Bettison topped the leaderboard for the most activities completed by an individual across all the academies. It was the second week in a row he has claimed this title.

NIAS will look to return to normal activities as soon as it is safe to do so, with the netball program eager to kick-start its next training block and applications for numerous 2022 programs set to open next week.

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