Newstead Athletics' Will Bottle is moving to Adelaide this weekend to pursue his ambition of becoming a top race walker.
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The 18-year-old is moving to the city of churches to work with his Adelaide-based coach Jared Tallent.
Tallent, who claimed gold in the 50-kilometre race walk at the 2012 London Olympics, has been coaching Bottle by distance for the past year and a half.
"I need to take the next step in my career to see if I can actually make world teams and world juniors," Bottle said.
"We've got a good training group and base over there so it's a win-win if I move there."
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The Riverside High School year 12 student said his next major race was in February at the world teams championships in Turkey.
He wants to bring his time of about 43 minutes down to 41 minutes for the 10km walk.
The race walker hopes that can be improved by working with Tallent and reflected on when they trained in New South Wales' snowy mountains.
"When we were in Perisher for a month last January that was probably the best training month I've had and I was smashing PBs at the start of last season," he said.
"So I hope that's going to happen again."
Away from the track, Bottle will also get stuck into his new full-time job as a greenskeeper after getting a taste for it while doing work experience.
Bottle said he had deal with niggles during the off-season but had since returned to training.
Cycling was part of his cross-training during the winter months.
The young gun returned to competition on Saturday at St Leonards, his first meet since nationals in April.
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