The club’s new youth development officer, Inghelbrecht has been in the role for the past month.
Bringing the experience of previously being the Sport Otago athletics development officer, she is enjoying her new job which involves six to eight hours a week.
While "pretty new to it still", she has both short-term and long-term goals, which begin with raising participation numbers.
"Initially, it’s to try to get more kids involved," she said.
"To start with we just want to get some more kids participating.
"Then the ones we can get involved, get them better support and create some pathways for them.
"I’ve had some good response from parents; there’s some keen kids out there as well.
"So now’s the time to find out what they want and what they need, what they’re after."
The ultimate goal was to set up a youth high performance academy.
That would enable pupils from Otago to have a pathway to competing at the sport’s highest level.
However, she said that was very much a long-term plan.
At present the sport had "some kids" involved at a reasonably high level, although numbers were small compared to others.
She said the club was hoping to put on some triathlon-specific skills sessions over the summer, the first of which was a bike session next Tuesday.
Alongside that, she felt it was important to place an emphasis on the social element of the club, so those involved could make friends while doing the sport.
The third key was to get parents involved.
There was quite a lot of competition with other sports to find good dates and times. However, the Otago secondary school championships were to be part of Challenge Wanaka, which Inghelbrecht said was exciting.
The championships would be held on February 15, with school teams also having the chance to complete the Challenge Wanaka Half on the Saturday.
There was plenty of time before then, though, with the club’s first race of the season, the Harbour Basin Supersprint, on December 12.
Both individuals and teams could enter either the triathlon or duathlon.
The triathlon would consist of a 350m swim, 10km bike and 3km run, while the duathlon was made up of a 1km run, followed by a 10km bike and finish with a 3km run.
