Member Byron PAGE
From Kinglake West, Byron, a tall well built lad, had a relatively short career with Collingwood, but was another of those in “the one that got away category!”
Beginning in October 1998, he had just two seasons with the Club, predominantly on the track, but including a couple of runs in the winter season and showed a lot of potential in a variety of disciplines.
Byron did almost all of his training, including the hurdles, on grass ovals at Kinglake West, catching up on other events in competition at Box Hill where the Club was competing at the time.
Despite these limitations, Byron was able to finish in fourth place in the Victorian Under 16 Heptathlon Championship two years in a row. In the second year he broke the Club record for the event, creating a mark that still stands at the time of writing, some eighteen years later.
In his record breaking effort, Byron powered to a win in the hurdles event, only to be told that he had to do it all over again, because the officials had only placed nine flights of hurdles on the track instead of the required ten! Byron backed up with another win, although lost a few points with a time (to be expected) a little slower than his first effort.
In the 1500 metres, the last event of seven, conducted over the two days of competition, Byron produced a ten second PB to record 4:44, just missing a medal. The competition, including champion thrower Tim Dreissen from South Bendigo, had been dominated by the field games exponents and needless to say, Byron picked up a lot of points on the leaders with his effort over the metric mile.
Byron played a lot of junior basketball with the Kinglake club and later on had a couple of seasons with the Whittlesea Football Club as a senior.
August 2017