"At the 2019 nationals, I was in the three-kilometre event and got disqualified," he reflected.

"I was at the train station afterwards and I'm like, 'I just want this to be my life. I'm going to train real hard and get my technique on point. So I can get better and do what I do now'."

Bottle still doesn't know why he was disqualified from that race but figures it was related to his technique.

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Regardless, it provided the fire that has led him to achieve results such an almost 50-second personal best in Melbourne this past fortnight.

The 17-year-old won a men's under-18 5km race as part of the Australian and Oceania 35km Race Walk Championships.

Bottle registered a time of 22.01 minutes to take out the event at Faulkner Park.

He was three seconds off Will Thompson's national record set in 2019.

"It was about halfway when I made my move," he said.

"I was in third and then the other guy dropped off. Then I was like, 'I'll probably need to go now'.

"I decided to go and had a good finish."

Bottle turned the tables after coming third to Owen Toyne and Riley Coughlan at this year's nationals in Sydney.

He beat them in Melbourne and was 24 seconds ahead of second-placed Toyne.

The Launceston College year 11 student said he had ramped up his training since nationals.

"I started a new training program as soon as I came back from nationals and I've just increased my load because I need to go up in distances this year for race walking," he said.

Bottle's previous personal best came at the most recent state championships.

While in Melbourne, Bottle got the chance to meet Australian race walker and Olympic gold medallist Jared Tallent for the first time.

Tallent, who is Adelaide-based, will now co-coach Bottle in conjunction with the youngster's long-time Launceston-based mentor, James Anderson.

"We talked about what the training is going to be like and what I'm in for in the future," Bottle said of his chat with Tallent.

"I'm aiming for world under-20s which is in two or three years. I'm still 17 so I need to work my way down for a qualifying time in the 10km so I can go to that. So we're talking about what it's going to take and how I'm going to get there."

Bottle said the idea was to meet up with Tallent in person once every three months. They'll also communicate over the phone and online.

More immediately, the athlete, who races in Hobart every second weekend, has his sights set on the Australian road walking championships which are in September in Melbourne.

"I'm going there aiming for a PB and to win," he said.

So how did a youngster, with no family background in race walking, take up the unique sport?

"I was at Little Athletics in under-9s, which is the first year you can do the race walking 700-metre event," he said.

"I was like 'this is sick, I'll try it out'."

The youngster developed quickly, broke a Little Athletics record and started training with Launceston coach Michelle Heron.

He hasn't looked back.

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