St Monica’s pupils Liam Bigeni and Jack Killen turned even their family’s heads with outstanding medal winning displays at the NSW MacKillop titles for athletes with a disability at Blacktown Olympic Park this month.

Bigeni qualified for the NSW PSSA Championships by winning two gold medals in the junior shot put and long jump events, making him the best Catholic primary school athlete of his age in the State, while Killen also booked his ticket to the State titles with a bronze medal in the senior long jump.

The pair made it to the open State titles after having earlier won the events at the St Monica’s school and Parramatta Diocese carnivals.

Making their achievements more impressive is the fact neither are in an athletics club and only get the opportunity to train on rare occasions at school.

“I was really proud of myself when I won,” Bigeni said.

Confidence also wasn’t an issue for him – when asked if he thought he’d win, Bigeni replied “yep”.

“They’re not in little athletics or anything like that – they’ve come that far only in school,” St Monica’s teacher Cathy Smith said.

“Their parents were very impressed because they didn’t realise they were that good.

“The school started the AWD program a few years ago and we’d like to see a few other schools start to take it up.”

Bigeni also made it to Parramatta in the 100m and 200m, while Killen won his 200m at the zone level only to miss out on corrected times.