[As published in May/June 2026 BayBuzz magazine.]
In August, an 18-year-old from Hastings will step into a throwing ring in Eugene, Oregon, and compete against the best under-20 discus and shot put throwers in the world. He has been training for this moment for less than a year.
Six months ago he could not make the podium in discus at the national schools championships. Now he is ranked somewhere between seventh and eleventh on the planet for his age group, and the college scouts will be watching.
He could be Hawke’s Bay’s next Olympic athletics superstar. It is time the region sat up and took notice.
Craig and Vicki McDougall just liked the sound of Austin. But for an 18-year-old Hastings kid with his sights firmly on the United States, it might just be the most fitting name a New Zealander could carry onto an American athletics track.
He is 1.88 metres tall, weighs around 98 kilograms, moves like someone who has been athletic his whole life, and carries himself with a warmth and maturity that belies his age.
In August he will represent New Zealand at the World Junior Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, competing in both the discus and shot put. He is, by any measure, extraordinary. What makes the story even more remarkable is how recently it all came together.
In December 2024 he was sixth at the national schools championships in discus. By March 2025 he had won the national under-20 discus title with a throw of 57.81 metres, and a week later posted an 18.78 metre shot put qualifier, ranking him number 1 in New Zealand in Under 20s.
His coach, Hastings-based Mike Schofield, who also coaches 2024 Olympic shot put silver medallist Maddison-Lee Wesche, called it “the most meteoric rise I can think of in world athletics”. That is not a sentence coaches reach for lightly.
But ask Austin about it and he does not blink. He is focused. He is planning. And he has a very specific destination in mind.
“I’ve always wanted to experience the American university system. The student athlete thing, the facilities they have over there, it’s just unheard of. I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least try.”
His target programmes are Texas Longhorns or Arkansas, top throwing environments where good athletes become great ones. The strategy, worked out with coach Schofield, is elegantly simple: do not cold-call admissions offices. Perform so well that the scouts come to you.
“My coach has said, just train your butt off and throw really far, and then they come to you. And going to the World Champs in Eugene is kind of like a golden ticket, because all the college scouts will be there. It’s in America, so all the coaches are going to be at that meet.”
Eugene, Oregon. The home of Nike. The birthplace of American track and field culture. It is the perfect stage, and Austin knows it.
One ring to another
Austin grew up in an athletic family. His mother Vicky played netball, tennis and athletics. His father Craig, as much of Hawke’s Bay knows, is a former national light heavyweight boxing champion and founder of the Giants Boxing Academy, a programme built not just to produce good fighters but good people. Sport and values were never separate things in the McDougall household.
“We’re a sport family. Mum and Dad never pushed us into any specific sport, but they always wanted us to be involved. Dad’s a boxing coach and he didn’t even push us into boxing. We all gave it a go and enjoyed it, but it was never forced.”
All three McDougall siblings, Cooper, Hadley and Austin, attended Lindisfarne College with Austin a recipient of the Evergreen Scholarship, a trust established by the O’Sullivan family, one of Hawke’s Bay’s prominent business families.
Austin thrived there: senior athletics champion in the discus, shot put, high jump and 400 metres, senior Sportsman of the Year, and national 90kg youth heavyweight boxing champion.
Former Lindisfarne rector Stuart Hakeney, who watched Austin develop across five years at the college, puts it simply: “A combination of outstanding talent, true grit, and his qualities as an exceptional young man of character stand him in good stead to achieve great things in the future.”
When it came to the American university pathway though, boxing was not going to open the door.
Austin says: “There’s no real pathway through boxing to get into a US college, so I thought, why not give athletics a proper go? I was already good at it. And in the throwing game, if you just train hard, get real strong and big, it feels more achievable. Mass moves mass.”
From the boxing ring to the discus ring. One ring to another. Austin laughs when he puts it that way.
The physical transition took some adjustment. Boxing kept him aerobic, lean and constantly fatigued. Throwing is a different world entirely.
“The first month or two, I felt like I wasn’t even training. Boxing drains you completely. With throwing, you’re in the gym getting strong, eating food, trying to get bigger. I’d be thinking, this doesn’t feel like training. But it is. You just have to trust the process.”
He is trusting it. In training he has already thrown over 61 metres in discus unofficially. He is midway through a 12 to 14-week strength block, with a training camp in the US before the August 5 competition date in Eugene.
The dream setup
While most of his mates are at university, Austin has a rather different daily routine. He is working as a teacher aide at Ebbett Park School in Hastings, a role he clearly loves.
“I’m real thankful they gave me the opportunity. An 18-year-old with no experience in that space, they still backed me. I’ve loved boxing coaching with kids, putting smiles on their faces, and this is the same. Principal Kate Medlicott is wonderful.”
The logistics are almost suspiciously perfect. He works 9am to 2:30pm. Training starts at 3. The school is three minutes from the facility.
“It wraps perfectly around training. It’s the dream setup, honestly.”
Monday to Friday is all business. Weekends he tries to be as normal a teenager as possible, catching up with mates when they’re back from university, watching the Warriors, spending time with family. He sounds, in many ways, like exactly what he is: a grounded, self-aware young man doing something quite extraordinary.
The values piece is not incidental to any of this. When you talk to Austin, it comes through clearly and without any trace of performance.
“If you don’t live by their values, you don’t live with them. And that’s a big thing for me. It’s about being respectful to everyone, showing integrity in every space. My coach has the same values, which is awesome. Dad always tries to build the biggest team possible and they all have to have the same values.”
It is the same philosophy Craig McDougall has applied for years in youth development across Hawke’s Bay. The Giants Boxing Academy was never just about boxing. It was about giving young people a framework for life. That ethos is very much alive in his son.
The other story
In 2023, Craig McDougall, the man they call Mr Positive, was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.
Austin chooses his words carefully here. You can tell it sits close to his chest.
“When you hear the word cancer, your first thought is just, oh, he’s gonna die. That was my first thought. I can’t have life without him, because he’s such a big piece of it.”
Craig, in true form, has approached his illness the way he approaches everything: strategically, positively, and with a team around him. He has explored a more holistic path and his results have been improving. His dad’s next goal, Austin says with a smile, is to be at his best before Austin heads to Eugene in August.
“He treats it like a full-time job. He’s the last person you’d think would have cancer. If you knew him before the diagnosis, you’d never believe it. He’s just on the up.”
Craig has quietly made it his mission to be present for this next chapter. In a very real way, Austin going to the World Junior Championships is also Craig’s story, the culmination of a lifetime spent building people up through sport in Hawke’s Bay.
No ceiling on what’s possible
Austin McDougall is, by his own admission, in no rush. He is only 18. He wants to keep developing as an athlete and as a person before heading to the US, likely sometime in 2026 or 2027.
He knows the college transfer portal, where athletes move between institutions once they prove themselves, is a longer game. Start somewhere, train hard, improve, and then the top programmes come calling.
“I’d be silly to set myself targets right now. If I throw 60, great. But what if 63 happens? You can’t put a ceiling on what might be possible.”
He is thinking about studying physiology. It feeds his passion for the body and sport, and it is a solid career regardless of where athletics takes him.
In the meantime, he has Eugene on the horizon. He has a father fighting harder than anyone he knows. He has a set of values that hold him steady.
Austin McDougall. Keep that name somewhere you can find it. You’ll be hearing it again.
How Hawke’s Bay can be part of the journey
Getting to the World Champs is not cheap. Flights, accommodation, a pre-competition training camp in the US, equipment and coaching costs add up fast.
For a young athlete from a Hawke’s Bay family doing everything right, the gap between talent and opportunity often comes down to one thing: community support.
Sponsorship partners will be backing not just a trip to Oregon in August, but the early stages of a remarkable athletic career. When Austin eventually pulls on a college singlet in the United States, the businesses that backed him will have been part of that story from the start.
If your business would like to get behind Austin, or if you’d like to make a personal contribution, reach out to Craig – [email protected]
Every dollar counts, and Hawke’s Bay has never been short of people who back their own.
Black… White… All Right. Come on the Bay!
Starting like most kiwi kids playing rugby barefoot on frosty Hawke’s Bay mornings, Damon became a sports editor for the local rag and then a sport promoter for the ASB Tennis Classic, the national rugby championship and the Auckland Blues. He served 15 years on the board of Sport Hawke’s Bay, five years as chair, and continues to be involved in sport governance locally.
