Emerging athlete Kieran Shepherd set for ACT Championships after Australian All Schools victory

As younger brothers often do, the athlete looked up to Jacob and aspired to be as good, if not better, than him.

The process led Kieran to the athletics track, determined to follow in his sibling's footsteps as a middle-distance runner.

It's safe to say the 13-year-old has achieved that goal, having claimed gold in the 800 metre event at December's Australian All Schools Athletics Championships.

He was one of a number of Canberra youngsters who thrived at the competition in Adelaide, including Alesha Bennetts who claimed a pair of gold medals, while Richard Yu won a gold and a silver and Blake Deery secured a gold and a bronze.

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The region's walkers also impressed, five youngsters finishing in the top three of their respective events. The group included Kodi Clarkson, who took out the under 15 3000m walk in record time and finished second in the under 17 5000m walk.

For Shepherd, the victory capped a memorable 12 months.

"My goal was to win a medal and my main goal was to win the 800m," Shepherd said. "It was pretty amazing to actually win it. I wasn't expecting to win but I was hoping I would."

The teenager has quickly turned his focus to his next goal and will contest the Under 20 800m event at the ACT Championships on Friday night.

The meet will see a host of big names descend on Canberra, with Olympic silver medallist Nicola Olyslagers entered in the women's high jump and Australian record holder Brooke Buschkuehl set to line up in the long jump.

Shepherd is one of numerous emerging youngsters training in Des Proctor's elite distance squad.

It's a group led by newly-crowned Australian 10,000m champion Leanne Pompeani. The athletes revel in each other's success and Proctor said a friendly atmosphere with a dose of healthy competition has contributed to the impressive results.

Shepherd has been among the biggest beneficiaries of the squad, having only joined full-time in the past 12 months.

"Twelve months ago he didn't like running, now he's the best in the country," Proctor said. "He started off competing against his brother and has grown to enjoy it.

"It was an exciting result for him. I'll monitor his training to make sure he doesn't do too much and hopefully he keeps improving."

Shepherd's success extended beyond the 800m and he finished fourth in the 400m and 1500m events, sixth in the long jump and eighth in the high jump.

His growth throughout the past year has been rapid and he achieved numerous personal bests at All Schools.

While the lure of competing at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics looms in the distance, Shepherd's short-term focus is on expanding his dominance to other events.

"I want to win more gold medals at nationals and hopefully by next year I can win all three middle-distance events," Shepherd said.

"The Olympics is a goal I will set in the future. It's more of a lifetime goal, hopefully one day I can get there."

Shepherd's success came as another emerging Canberra youngster made waves on Tuesday night.

Cameron Myers slashed three seconds off Ryan Gregson's Australian Under 18 1500m record at a meet in Melbourne.

The 16-year-old's time of 3:40.6 was just 0.64 seconds off the age group world record held by Olympic gold medallist Jakob Ingebrigtsen and he has his sights set on bettering the mark.

"It's pretty surreal, I always knew he had a lot of talent," Myers' coach Lee Bobbin said. "I think before he turns 17 he'll get that record of fastest 16-year-old in the world. He'll get that 0.64 that he needs.

"How fast can he go? In the right race he can knock another three seconds off that time this season."

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