University of Adelaide students perform well at the 27th UniSport Indigenous Nationals

NAIDOC Week held from July 2nd to 9th is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. It is also a chance to celebrate and recognise the history, culture, and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Throughout the year, AU Sport and Fitness celebrate our First Nations communities with a number of events and initiatives.

Last week we sent a team of students to UniSport Indigenous Nationals with the team led by Uncle Rod O’Brien, Kaurna Elder and Cultural Advisor Wirltu Yarlu at the University of Adelaide. Uncle Rod has been a long-standing member of the Indigenous Nationals team and a support for our younger, indigenous students.

The annual 27th Indigenous Nationals were held from June 26-30 at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria and brought together student-athletes from universities across Australia to compete in a variety of sports including touch football, basketball, netball, and volleyball to ultimately crown one university team the champion of the games.

The event began in 1996 as The National Indigenous Tertiary Education Student Games as a joint class project between 13 students enrolled in a Diploma of Aboriginal Studies (Community Recreation) at the then Wollotuka School for Aboriginal Studies, The University of Newcastle.

There were 33 teams and 32 universities that competed at the Indigenous Nationals last week from all around the country. Monash University had two teams, Victoria University and Deakin University merged as one team as well as RMIT and Federation University. The University of Queensland finished up as the overall winners of the tournament.

UoA finished equal 11th overall, their best finish being 4th in the basketball where they made the semi-finals.

Despite recovering from a foot injury at the tournament, Mitchell Odegaard who is currently studying Honours in Civil Engineering at the UoA was able to participate in netball and volleyball which he said worked out well in the end.

“I was meant to be in a moonboot but the injury was feeling fine and using a bit of self-judgment and being from a netball background I stayed as a goal shooter and I didn’t want to miss out on playing netball”, Mitchell said.

“With the volleyball I didn’t have to move much so that was okay and there was no contact in either netball or volleyball so that worked out well.

I was able to participate every second day so that was fun."

Mitchell was full of praise for the event.

“It was fantastic and incredible, the opening and closing ceremonies were really exciting and I couldn’t believe how loud it got when the Grand Finals were on, it was an amazing atmosphere,”?Mitchell said.

It was really good seeing all the different designs for the uniforms and the different artworks.

I really enjoyed networking with students from other universities and chatting all the different students from all the different sports was really exciting as well.”

He said having spoken to some of his teammates that they wanted to step it up in terms of preparation and make more of an effort next year to get other athletes involved to help make the team stronger.

Mitchell said next year they were excited about hopefully winning next year’s 28th Indigenous Nationals event to be hosted by the University of Wollongong, the first time the event will be held in the Wollongong region.