Whangārei’s Bella Earl is set to compete at the World Cross Country Championships this month, competing in the under-20 women’s race on February 18.

At just 17 years old, she’s already made a name for herself as a successful athlete, and now, after five years of training, she is representing Aotearoa on the world stage.

It’s an impressive feat for someone so young, but Earl said she “always wanted” to go this far in her sport.

“I’m super happy,” she said, “[and] really excited about going.”

Her father, Adrian Earl, said “it’s amazing” that his daughter has already come this far.

Bella comes from a family of athletes, and according to Adrian and her mother Anita, her younger sister Kaylee wants to follow in her sister’s footsteps.

Anita, said its “almost unbelievable” that Bella is set to compete at such a high level.

She reminisced on past photos from when her daughter first started her sporting journey and compared them to now, saying the difference was “amazing.”

Bella said she particularly enjoys cross-country because she likes pushing herself and “trying to beat other people”.

“And I just like running fast – it makes you feel really good,” she said.

Bella qualified for the World Cross Country Championships after coming eighth in the elite women’s 5,000-metre race at the Night of 5s Competition last year.

She also came first in the Senior Girls’ 3,000m and third in the Senior Girls’ 1,500m at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics Association Track and Field Championships.

Bella has also laid claim to the record for Whangārei Parkrun, with a time of 17.14.

Adrian explained the World Cross Country race is supposed to be more difficult than the Olympics because you’ve got “all the different disciplines coming into one race”.

“So, instead of doing a 1,500m race and a 5,000m and 10,000m, they’re all together,” Anita explained.

The course at Bathurst is two kilometres long, the standard for a World Cross Country event. Bella will run a total of six kilometres in the under-20 women’s race.

The course features obstacles such as a billabong, grapevines, mud and sand. The course has an uphill start, and equates to a grand total of 20 metres of elevation change.

Bella said she’s been running on beaches in preparation and “purposefully training later in the day so it’s more hot”.

She’s fundraising for the trip herself and will be travelling with the New Zealand team, Owairaka.

Her goal is to fundraise $5,000 for her trip, having so far raised more than $1,500.

After a two-year delay due to Covid, the competition takes place over one day. It’s the first time since 2007 that the event has been held in the Southern Hemisphere.

When asked about her goal for the upcoming competition, she said, “I want to come top ten, but I really want to get a medal”.

After Bathhurst, the next step in Bella’s journey is attending Toledo University in Ohio, in the United States. She received a scholarship last year for their prestigious athletics programme, and Bella plans to study exercise science.

That’s not all she’s got her eyes on, though.

The high-achiever wants to represent Aotearoa in the Olympics or Commonwealth games “as soon as possible”.

It seems like this may just be the beginning of a successful sporting career.

The link to her Givealittle page can be found here: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-bella-get-to-the-world-cross-country-champs?fbclid=IwAR2RvzfH0QGGYQtCGA3Gt9HQTmw7Is0PGJfgb-xsE_nyU86q3VcAmWeyO5E.