New England Zone Little Athletics coordinator Mel O'Connell has taken her hat off to all of the volunteers and officials that braved the wet conditions to ensure Saturday's zone carnival ran smoothly.
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It was, as the saying goes, great weather for ducks, with rain persisting throughout the day.
"You guys were absolutely incredible today," O'Connell, who herself went through two waterproof jackets, wrote on the zone Facebook page.
It didn't seem to bother the athletes though with many still wearing smiles on their faces alongside their soggy appearance.
"A lot of the little kids were having a lot of fun in the mud," she said.
Saturday's rain was a bit of a double whammy after organisers had to shift venues mid-week.
"Originally they were meant to be in Gunnedah (at Donnelly Fields)," O'Connell said.
"On Wednesday we had to make the call to change it to Tamworth."
With the rain that had already fallen and the prediction of more to come, she said they "couldn't guarantee that the fields would stay open".
"And we couldn't not go ahead, everything was organised," she said.
Thankfully the Tamworth facilities are suitable for all weather, otherwise they probably would have had to go to Maitland or somewhere like that.
They also only had to worry about the wet weather for one day rather than two as it would have been in previous years.
"For the first time we switched to one day, just try and save travel for people and make it easier," O'Connell explained.
"All our officials are volunteers, this way it only takes one day out of their weekend rather than two."
It meant they had to start a bit earlier, but they were able to condense two days of events into one pretty well. Although there are a couple of things that they might look at changing for next year, she said.
From Saturday the first four from each event will now go on to represent the zone at the Regional Championships, which will be held in Tamworth on February 3 and 4, 2024.
There they will compete against the best from the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers zones.
