Please enjoy these excerpts from students who attended the Sports Leaders' Breakfast held at the Otago Polytechnic Sargood Centre with Courtney Duncan, World Motocross champion as the guest speaker.

'Having the opportunity to attend the athlete's breakfast with Courtney Duncan was amazing. She was definitely very inspiring and is a great speaker and role model for young athletes no matter what sport you do, because she failed and faced challenges many times before she was finally able to succeed and win 3 world championships in a row in motocross, which is remarkable. Listening to her journey in the sport of motocross, gave me a view of what someone from little old Dunedin can do no matter what sport you play or if it is individual or as a team that you should be yourself. She mentioned that you will come against rough times when you get injured or find things challenging and when things like that happen you just have to pick yourself up, stay determined, stay in the mindset of the race/game, and eventually you will find success no matter how big or small. Overall I thought she was an amazing speaker, and I am so grateful to have been able to listen to her tell her story as a professional athlete and one day I hope I can tell my story to.' - Elisabeth Hutton-Neill

'I really enjoyed having Courtney speak to us and share her journey. I specifically liked how she centred her focus around all sports rather than just her own, relating to aspects of her journey that we all could connect to. Her point about accountability and knowing that if something didn't go right that game/day/race there is no point setting blame but rather learning from it and treating it as motivation to do better.' - Abby Harris

'Listening to Courtney Duncan was inspiring to say the least. She's in an individual sport as I am and most similar talks are done by team sports athletes so it was refreshing to be listening to someone I could relate to. She talked about the disappointments she's faced and how they've helped take her to where she is today, despite it being a rocky ride. Hearing that she had days where she was willing to leave it all and quit highlighted one of the many difficulties which athletes face with tremendous pressure being put on them. She showed us all sides of being a pro athlete, the good, the bad and why it's all worth it in the end.' - Jordan Evans-Tobata

'I really liked how Courtney explained the idea of accountability. I think we can all learn a lot from her because she always takes responsibility for her mistakes. She has the ability to recognise her mistakes and take her 'work ons' away from each race. She trains hard and fixes/ changes what she needs to. This also displays a growth mindset that definitely contributes to her great success. I think we can all learn a lot from Courtney’s positive attitude towards challenges and short comings.' - Rosie Falcous

'I really enjoyed Courtney Duncan's talk, in particular her passion and love for her sport and her advice that if we felt stuck to remember the reasons we play. It was great to listen to a woman from the Otago region who has gotten to the world stage and I left feeling inspired. It was a very insightful talk and I am glad to have been invited to listen.' - Isy Parry