Nine Aquinas College students recently found out exactly what it'll take for them to succeed as an elite athlete and to become the country's next lot of sports stars.

The Year 10 students, who are enrolled in the college's Sports Academy, spent the final week of term three training and learning at the AUT Millennium Institute in Auckland.

The programme for the academy's camp was facilitated by Auckland University of Technology staff and tied in with the Athlete Development program, which AUT runs through the Millennium Institute.

Sports director Bill Kite says during the visit the students rubbed shoulders with the likes of Olympic medallists Eliza McCartney and Valerie Adams, Silver Fern Anna Harrison, NZ Breakers' centre Alex Pledger and weightlifter Tracey Lambrechs.

'The students have had a glimpse of life as an elite athlete – training schedules, high level coaching and facilities, testing systems and analysis, mental preparation and planning,” says Bill.

'Hopefully, this has inspired and motivated them to want to train harder, be committed to improving, to set goals for themselves, to become better athletes.”

Netballer, swimmer and water polo player Madeline Gash, 14, says she enjoyed the camp a lot, especially the depth of detail with sport training and development.

'Learning and understanding the importance of the mental side of sport was the best thing, meeting Eliza McCartney and having a photo with her was great too,” says Madeline.

The meet and greet with Eliza was also a favourite moment of the camp for 15-year-old rugby, basketball and touch rugby player Matt Dobbyn.

'It was thrilling meeting Eliza and seeing how she trains and how often she trains.

'I really enjoyed the camp and learning about the different aspects of training and actually doing some of it, while the biggest learning for me was when we covered the mental side of sport.”