Injury and illness were not enough to stop Wimmera athlete Asha Meek from finishing in the top 10 in under-16 girls heptathlon at the Australian Athletics Championships in Perth.

Meek finished the heptathlon, which ranked competitors based on a combined score from seven events across Saturday and Sunday, in seventh place with 3934 points – a personal best points result.

Wimmera athletics coach Ricky Price said despite the untimely illness and a nagging hip injury that interrupted her preparation in the lead-up to the championships, Meek had outperformed her own expectations.

“Although somewhat of a struggle over the last few weeks … she has performed very well,” he said.

“Still lots of improvement to come and more experience will set her up well for the future.”

Meek ran fourth-fastest of the competitors in the 90-metre hurdles on Saturday, running a time of 14.31 seconds into a strong headwind, and recorded a near personal best of 1.39 metres in high jump.

Sitting in seventh position at the end of Saturday, Meek recorded a personal-best throw of 28.93 metres in javelin to finish fifth, and then finished seventh in the 800 metres.

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