Life Membership Tony Smyth

12 May 2025

Life Membership Tony Smyth

On Saturday night at the Athletics NSW Awards Dinner, Technical Official Tony Smyth was awarded life membership.

23-years ago Tony Smyth’s service to Athletics NSW started as a field event judge at Interclub competitions. He quickly became an accredited technical official passing exams in jumps and throws. After a few years break, Tony resumed his service for the 2008/09 season. Since 2013 he has not missed an Australian senior or junior championship and most Australian All Schools.

Moving into photo finish he has been part of a NSW team which have provided exceptional service to the athletes. Not only are they very speedy producing results, which help announcers present a better meet, they provide a rare service of split times at all major competitions for all events over 400m. They also undertake the major operation of setup of photo finish both on the back straight, to enable sprint and hurdles events to be conducted with the wind following.

In addition to the Australian championship appointments, he has received a number of international appointments. The two major have been the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games (Samoa). He has also three Oceania Championship appointments (2015, 2019, 2022) and World Masters (2016).

Tony also has club service with Campbelltown and in the ‘90s in North Queensland.

Tony’s service to NSW Athletics has been astounding. Often the first to arrive and last to finish, there is rarely a competition he is not at.

Thank you Tony for incredible high quality service to NSW Athletics.

Athletics NSW is pleased to award you Life Membership.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW
Image: Tony Smyth (image courtesy of David Tarbotton)