She demonstrated her potential at the Colgate Games at the Caledonian Ground yesterday, when she put her foot down over the last 200m to win the girls aged 11 800m by five seconds in 2min 37.49sec.
There was a touch of the old man in Stella's run because Peter Pearless also had the ability to win races with his ferocious sprint.
"I want to go to the Olympics, like Dad," Stella said.
She wanted to follow her sister Hannah into athletics early but her father would not let her start the sport until she was aged 10.
"Stella doesn't do any serious training," Peter Pearless said.
"I want her to keep enjoying the sport and have fun."
Peter Pearless won the New Zealand senior men's 800m title in 1983 and 1985 and finished fifth in his heat at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1min 49. 95sec and did not qualify for the next round.
Another impressive performance yesterday came from Jack Bryant (Canterbury University), who won the boys aged 12 discus with a throw of 41.64m.
It was a personal best by 30cm and he won the event by the huge margin of 11m.
His sequence of throws was 39.90m, 41.54m and 41.64m.
"I started athletics at the age of 3 for fun, started competing at 5 and switched to the Canterbury University club at the age of 11," he said.
He will be a first-year pupil at St Bedes this year.
Other notable winning performances from the 900 competing athletes came from Harry Marks (Eastern) in the boys aged 14 long jump (6.23m), Fletcher Greaves (Lower Hutt) in boys aged 14 400m (52.13sec), Libby Jones (Taieri) in the girls aged 14 shot put (9.73m) and Laura Smith (Christchurch Avon) in girls aged 14 400m (60.18sec).
