Many young Australians are taking the opportunity to pursue their love of sport by representing the country overseas.
The Olympics has sparked encouragement from many schools to help support students to realise their dreams.
High School student Samuel O’Connor had the opportunity to represent Australia in the Under 18’s Australian schoolboys tour of the UK and Ireland playing against big clubs in the United Kingdom.
“I think it’s a lot of hard work, especially leading up to it,” Mr O’Connor said. “The year before, I didn’t make these rounds and I think that motivated me more to make the next round, so, I’ve worked harder coming to it and I think I deserved it.”
Mr O’Conner trains twice day and was determined to improve in order to make the team.
“Every day I probably woke up early in the morning, went down to the local park and just started doing a lot of running. improving speed ball drills and then go home, shower, go to school and I just repeated as soon as I got back home,” he said.
“I did make it because of the confidence that I had leading up to it.”
Another success story is Australia’s youngest Olympian who represented Australia in Paris, Chloe Covell who reached her dreams of skateboarding for the country.