Junior Carnival to start today
MORE than 400 kids from across Australasia will attend Maccabi Australia’s 34th Junior Carnival in Sydney, which starts today (Tuesday).
The 160 athletes from Victoria will join competitors from New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and New Zealand.
“We’re ready and excited to go,” Victorian team manager Giselle Berlinski told The AJN.
She said that people have been calling this week to try and secure late spots.
“People hear about how fantastic it is going to be and want to come, but it’s hard to reschedule everything eight days out so we have a waiting list now.”
Highlighting a particularly exciting development, Berlinski noted that for the first time the Victorian delegation includes an all-abilities competitor.
“We have had an all-abilities person on a volunteer basis, but never to participate before.”
Carnival manager Justin Shelton said that while it’s nerve-wracking waiting for the event to begin, it’s also very exciting.
“The committee has done a lot of hard work over the last 14 months and we’re really looking forward to the carnival because I’m sure it will be a great event,” Shelton told The AJN.
He added that aside from the sport, he’s particularly looking forward to two of the social activities.
“We’ve got the raw challenge event, which is our adventure day.
“It’s an obstacle course style of event, which is similar to the mud run we ran last time, that is being run by an external company.”
The second event is the closing party, which is being held at a new function centre. “Attractivity is a brand new venue that has dodgem cars, rope courses, laser tag and arcade games,” he said.
“When I did the closing party at carnival many years ago, we went to Sega World and it was great because the vibe was good and there were lots of things to do so hopefully this will be the same.”
Shelton said that this year carnival has effectively been split into social and competitive.
Some kids will be competing in high-intensity sport while others will focus on the social activites.
“We’re trying a different approach,” he said.
Joshua Levi
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