At just 16-years-old, Katie Wright has been selected for not one but two high-level sports teams that will take her all the way to Finland to compete.
The Shenton College student only moved to Western Australia from South Africa in 2018 but soon found a skill for floorball when her new friends invited her to play.
Katie has gotten so good at the sport she has been selected to play for the Australian Under 19s floorball team that will travel to Lahti, Finland at the end of April for the international tournament.
The defender said she couldn’t wait to travel to Finland for the competition.
“It is a nice achievement because I only got into it not so long ago,” she said.
“Finland is one of the homes of floorball with their men and women’s teams in the top three in the world so it’ll be very good to be able to train there and see some of those players from that area.
“Most of the girls in my team I’ve been playing with since I started so it’ll be very exciting.”
The aim of floorball is similar to hockey except the speed of the game is much more higher and teams play with lighter sticks and a ball with holes in it.
Katie is already an avid hockey player, also being selected for the Under 16s WA hockey team that will be competing in a national tournament in Hobart in April.
She said it had been a few intense months of training in the lead up to the two competitions.
“I have three hockey trainings a week and five floorball trainings plus gameplay throughout the season,” she said.
“Playing for WA in hockey in a couple of weeks will work well in helping my fitness ahead of the floorball competition.”
Katie has set up a GoFundMe to help raise the $8000 she needs to be able to reach her dreams of playing for Australia in Finland.
She said any donation would mean “absolutely everything” to her.