Opinion
How did the Stawell Gift waste what should have been its greatest ever race?
Michael Gleeson
Sports columnistThe Stawell Gift is the richest foot race in the country. It is the most storied and historic of races in Australia. It is quaint and unique, but it was also made to be too ridiculous for its own good.
This year, Stawell was able to attract the biggest name in Australian sport right now, Gout Gout, thanks to the largesse of local farmer turned businessman Sandy McGregor. Crowds came in numbers unseen in years. The broadcasters salivated as ratings soared.
Gout Gout and Lachlan Kennedy in the back markers’ race after missing the Stawell Gift final.Credit: Getty Images
It was the biggest Stawell Gift in decades. Not only did they have Gout, organisers also had Lachlan Kennedy, the 21-year-old who beat Gout over 200 metres earlier this year and only weeks ago ran 10 seconds flat for the 100m.
Gout, who needs little introduction, is the 17-year-old wunderkind who has broken national records at under-16, 18 and 20 level. He broke Peter Norman’s 200m record that had stood since the Mexico Olympics. He had been signed to a $6 million contract with Adidas.
He is not only one of the quickest athletes in Australia but one of the most sought after.
It was the biggest coup to have this pair running head-to-head at what prides itself as the most important Gift in the country.
How then could this pair, two of the fastest men in Australia, one of them the fastest ever over 200m and being compared favourably to a young Usain Bolt, not even make the final of the Stawell Gift?
How did the Stawell Gift so badly waste what should have been its greatest ever race?
The answer is in the handicapping, which is not done by the Stawell Gift organisers but by the Victorian Athletic League, which allocates handicaps for professional races in the state. Gout and Kennedy were racing against sprinters starting up to 7.5m and 8.75m ahead of them in their semi-finals.
Ideally in handicapped races, if the handicaps are accurate, all runners should hit the line at the same time. That the two quickest men in Stawell on Monday could not even get to the final would suggest the handicappers had a howler.
Handicapping in pro running is notorious for stories of runners running dead at length in the hope of improving their handicap – and there is no suggestion the runners in this year’s Gift did that. But it is part of the story of this type of racing that half the battle in winning is getting a good mark to start the race.
Even the eventual winner, the likeable schoolteacher John Evans, admitted when he saw the handicap he had been given – 9.75m – his eyes lit up, knowing he had a decent chance.
“I knew it was a good handicap. I knew I could work something off that, and I just really had to train hard, push hard, see what I could do from it,” Evans said.
“It was always going to be tough against like Jasper Thomas and Patrick Martin, all these other fantastic runners, but I knew it was good for me, and I had to just keep pushing from it.”
Gout and Kennedy were always going to get the worst handicaps. Kennedy was running with 25-centimetre start; Gout had a 1m start. In fact, they should have both been off scratch, as Bree Rizzo, winner of the women’s race, did.
It was not the decision on where Gout and Kennedy started that was the problem, but how much of a head start they had to give the rest of the field.
It is an invidious job, but one that the handicappers clearly got terribly wrong.
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