Melvin Monleh was carrying some extra weight in his suitcase when he returned from the Australian Junior Athletics Championships in Perth earlier this month.
The 13-year-old needed to make room for four gold medals.
Monleh dominated the sprint events at the championships, claiming individual gold medals in the under-15 100 metres and 200 metres.
Not done there, he also anchored Victoria’s 4×100 metre and 4×200 metre relay teams to victory.
Monleh’s coach, Steve Gaffney, said the performances were up there with the best of the young star’s career.
“This year Melvin is much more into the Athletics Victoria and Athletics Australia junior pathways,” Gaffney said. “Prior to that, he was in Little Athletics competitions.
“These are fantastic results for him. He is actually racing the best runners in the under-15 age group in the country. He is doing that, at this stage, quite easily.”
Monleh got his start at the Sunbury Little Athletics Centre, where he enjoyed outstanding success, winning three gold medals and one silver at the Australian Little Athletics Championships last year.
As well as progressing to youth competition, the Melton resident was also given a scholarship to the Maribyrnong Sports Academy.
Gaffney said there were two major strengths to Monleh’s sprinting.
“One of his real strengths is his natural speed,” he said. “The other is, there is a lot of fluency in his running. He is quite a natural runner … one of the most natural that I would have come across in almost 40 years of coaching.”
Monleh’s next major event will be the national all schools championships later this year.
Gaffney thinks Monleh could qualify for the world youth or world junior championships in coming years.
