The Olympic marathon runner returned home to Launceston to be closer to family and took to the stage at The Examiner's Coles Junior Sports Awards to shed light on her career and bid for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

"It's funny because I went to the USA on a 400-metre hurdles scholarship and I've ended up running marathons," she said.

"I owe my distance career to the USA for picking up on that because no one else had picked up on it before."

At Youngtown Primary School she said in her cross country races she would hide in the bushes and jump out at the end because she did not want to run that far, a far stretch from her weekly 36-kilometre runs.

ELSEWHERE IN SPORT

The 30-year-old qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympics after running her first official marathon in 2015 in Amsterdam but had to await the results of other Australian runners.

The same is true this time around, she has run an Olympic qualifying time but now awaits others results before she confirms her ticket to Japan.

"There was a girl who was doing the London Marathon and she was the last kind of potential threat and I remember watching her race and I'd watch a little bit and then go outside and pray she didn't run quicker," she said.

In her interview on stage with The Examiner sports editor Rob Shaw, she emphasised to the young Tasmanian athletes in attendance that they did not need to move away from home, to the mainland or overseas, to achieve their sporting goals.

"It kills me a little bit when athletes think they have to leave Tasmania, I left for other reasons but not because I thought I had too," she said.

"I left Sydney and everyone said 'what about your running?' and I said look you know what, if I've got a pair of shoes and I've got a road I'm happy.

"To be able to run a PB at the Gold Coast [Commonwealth Games] this year just reaffirms my choice, it's given me confidence in living here and being here."

Proof of the calibre of young athletes in Northern Tasmania is 17-year-old Australian champion rower Rebecca Bye, who won the Female Athlete of the Year Award.

The North Esk Rowing Club member remains unbeaten across school, state and national competitions in the under-19s women's single scull category, and also took out the under-21 state title in the single scull.

Similarly, Male Athlete of the Year, North Launceston premiership player Jackson Callow has stepped up on the field and was named in the 2018 under-16 All Australian side to draw attention from the AFL draft.

The Ricky Ponting Service to Sport Shield was awarded to softball Eagles Academy founder Peter Wattke, who had dedicated the last 20 years of his life to building softball up in the state to provide the necessary facilities to develop future stars.

Soccer star Josh Hannes took home the Phil Edwards Bursary, honouring the former The Examiner's sports journalist, for his tenacity and resilience off the field after he broke his leg earlier this year.

As he stepped off the pitch for his six-month recovery, he turned to learn code to build himself an online blog, is constructing a folding bike and lived on a zero-waste diet for two weeks.

"We were only into the fifth round of the season and I had just been asked to play for the senior men's championship side," he said.

"To complement this, I wanted to push myself physically and mentally to prepare for the season next year so, I began planking.

"From three minutes I pushed to 10, to thirty and now to an hour."

Aphrodite All-Star Cheer and Dance accepted Team of the Year after only 18 months in the sport with the team unable to attend as they trained up to five hours a day in the lead up to the national championships.

Rising stars Abbie Butler and Casey Noble received recognition for their achievements.

Fourteen-year-old Abbie was identified by Athletics Tasmania in the Tassie Talent Program this year before winning gold in the state all-schools competition in the 1500m and 2000m steeplechase events.

Eleven-year-old Casey won the award after he put on the green and gold kit his year for Australia in the Pacific Rim Futsal Cup.