A former island gymnast has won a gold medal at the Western Australia State Athletics Championships.

Caitlin Courtie - who emigrated to Perth, from Douglas, with her family nine years ago - had previously been a state champion in gymnastics, having been introduced to the sport while living in the Isle of Man.

She attained international standard when representing Australia, but a stress fracture of the back, sustained while training, put paid to her gymnastics career.

When she recovered she turned her focus to athletics, having enjoyed the sport previously when time permitted from gymnastics training and competition.

Caitlin runs for the Oceanside Athletics Club but the State Championships are contested by the nine districts in Western Australia and she was selected to run the girls under-17s 4x400 metres and 4x100 metres relays for Hamersley, which is her district.

She ran the second leg in the longer distance event and the first leg in the 4x100m.

Hamersley, and Caitlin, almost made it a double gold as they finished in the silver medal position in the shorter relay.

The difference between gold and silver was precisely one hundredth of a second and the judges spent so long examining the finishing statistics data that no-one knew who had won until the result was announced at the prize presentation.

Caitlin, 16, has always managed to combine sport with conscientious study in school work and this has paid off when, in the equivalent of her GCSE year, she received nine straight A’s including four excellence and three effort awards and the overall student award in her academic year for mathematics.

She comes from a well-known Manx sporting family heritage. Her father, Carl Courtie, and mother Alison (nee Brown) both represented the Isle of Man at county level in badminton (Ali was in the England B junior squad as a teenager).

Carl’s late father, Fred Courtie, and Ali’s father Colin Brown were multiple champions at badminton and tennis respectively.

Caitlin’s brother, Ryan, now 21, recently returned to live and work in the island. He was a junior state champion at table tennis (singles) and a leading badminton player.