I’ve always been a little confused with the whole marks thing. I see my friend Tony Alozie is running. The fact that he has a 0.75 means that he’s basically starting from the start and the slower runners get a ‘head start’? Would it then be possible for a good 10.6/10.5 runner to fabricate slow times to get a better start position?
Youngy might answer better but generally runners are handicapped conservatively first off and then after a few races the handicapper probably finds their correct mark. The officials are generally strict around people who run inconsistently. But you are right it is hard for consistent runners to win. Often the event can be won by an improving runner who has got in with a good handicap. This is the richest professional race in australia. I think first prize is about $30,000 this year.
Yelood is correct - the handicappers in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania & to some extent - New South Wales sensibly give first time runners a ‘novice’ mark which is 7.0m in Vic & SA. Unless the athlete is well above average this conservatively gives the runner somewhere to start from before the handicapper can assess the athlete against the rest of the competition.
An athlete with a good (better than average) amateur background will start from less than the novice mark. Tom Gamble has run around 10.80 and 21.44 and therefore starts from a mark that will still allow him to be competitive but not off the same mark as someone who hasn’t broken 11s or 22s.
The handicap system in Victoria rewards those athletes who run regularly. The more you run the quicker you will get out to a competitive mark.
Stawell has been historically the last meet of the Victorian Athletic League season which comprises about 25 meets through the year. There is a massive change in the landscape this year in that Ararat & Ballarat, both near by towns to Stawell have moved dates to after Stawell. Ballarat usually ran in February and Ararat in early March, but wih this move it will give athletes who miss out at Stawell something to look forward to.
The Stawell Gift is worth $60,000; the Ararat Gift on Wednesday 7th April is worth $20,000 and the Ballarat Gift on 10/11 April is worth $40,000.
Never before has there been three Gifts of this magnitude offered within a week.
This will be the biggest week in Australian professional running history.
Great initiative by the VAL and the organisers and should be a super week of pro-athletics.
It is more difficult than you think to fool the handicapper & stewards. They have a lot of experience in detecting sub-par performances and athletes who do so need to be very careful as the penalties can be severe.
Most athletes put their faith in the handicapper by running regularly, consistent and to their best every time so that the handicapper can give them the mark they need to win a race.
HOWEVER if an athlete has a canny coach who knows how to flatten an athlete for lead up races but still have the nous and ability to have the athlete peak and in PB shape when it counts, then, yes, slow times can be fabricated to perhaps ‘encourage’ the handicapper to offer a bigger handicap.
The knack is peaking the athlete when it matters and the history of Stawell is littered with anecdotes of athletes who failed to perform when it mattered.
Alozie has run sub 10.2 hence the mark of 0.75m. Problem for Alozie is he seems to be very much out of form and probably won’t make the semis. He does have the invitation backmarkers to run in on Easter Monday - a one off race for the 6 fastest sprinters (backmarkers) at the meet.
Rouge-Serret just ran 10.17 (+1.8) in preperation for Nationals in April
Hi los,
Just made the Rouge-Serret story a different thread…as Aaron is not entered for Stawell.
Interesting that Jacob Groth was entered for the WA state titles, but with the release of the Stawell marks and Groth given 3.25, he didn’t run in Perth.
A big PB (say in the same nature as AR-S) would have cut Groth’s mark back.
Might be only a coincidence and he may have another reason for not running in Perth, but it does add a little intrigue and perhaps suggests Groth is serious about having a crack at Stawell off 3.25m.
I believe the top 12 fancied so far are:
Jacob Groth (NSW) 3.25m
Aaron Stubbs (QLD) 4.00m
Steve Hooker (WA) 5.50m
Tom Gamble (QLD) 5.50m
John Adams (VIC) 6.75m
Richard Hankin (NSW) 6.75m
Adam Burbridge (VIC) 7.25m
Dale Woodhams (SA) 7.25m
Kevin Brittain (VIC) 7.50m
Andrew Howell (NSW) 8.00m
Paul Cracroft-Wilson (QLD) 9.00m
Fabrice Melanie (VIC) 9.50m
Running at St Bernards yesterday where the rich Don Furness Sprint over 70m was run. It was won by David Tinney. Josh Ross was entered but did not run as (I have been told) he had not notified Athletics Australia that he had resumed training and under the drug testing protocols he needed to obtain permission before resuming competition.
Youngy — What do AA have to do with the pro runners, I was of the belief they were different entities.
All professional running leagues have to comply with the requirements of the rules in respect to drug testing. I believe there were ASADA drug testers at St Bernards yesterday. ASADA has attended a couple of VAL meets this season fro random testing.
I don’t know the full story, but I can only surmise that as an elite level athlete, (albeit briefly retired) Josh Ross is to keep AA informed as to his whereabouts and movements in respect to training & competition for drug testing purposes. I gather that as Josh had not been tested for some time (assumed retired) and was about to compete that he perhaps needed to give some notice of his intention to return to competition.
That’s how it was relayed to me on the weekend - somebody else might have better understanding of the situation.
Groth ran a very poor 200m final at QLD state champs last week. Maybe an injury?
Aaron Stubbs aims to go back to back at Stawell Gift
By Scott Gullan
Herald Sun
March 30, 2010
MUCH of a professional runner’s life is spent whingeing about his handicap as he continually tries to secure a “luxury” mark.
And for most Stawell Gift winners, Central Park is not a happy hunting ground the next year.
Most defending champions just go through the formalities, turn up, smile and wave to the crowd and do their best off a much more difficult handicap.
Only one runner in the 132-year history of the race - Bill Howard in 1966-67 - has gone back-to-back.
But Aaron Stubbs is bucking the trend on both of the above traditions. He’s not whingeing about his handicap of 4m - he won last year off 7.25m - and he says he is a serious chance to win again.
What the 19-year-old brings to the table to support his confidence is a personal best 100m time of 10.66sec, which he set 10 days ago at the Queensland state titles.
“It was in the heats and I think I have got plenty left,” Stubbs said.
"Hopefully at Stawell I can run a bit faster and, to be honest, I was really stoked with my mark.
"I expected much less, so I think off 4m I should go pretty close to making another final. It’s a big challenge (to win again) but I think I can match up to it.
“I’m not sure what time it is going to take to win the Stawell Gift. I think I can run 12.0 again, which would put me very, very close.”
Stubbs, from Lismore in New South Wales, clocked 11.87sec last year, which was the second-quickest time since electronic timing began in 1973. Only Glenn Crawford in 1995 has gone faster (11.79) down the 120m Central Park track.
A chronic hamstring problem slowed Stubbs’ progress after the biggest win of his career last Easter and the former beach sprint champion had been back in full training for only four weeks before his PB in Queensland.
“I think I have improved since last year. I’m a lot stronger now but the only thing is I haven’t been able to do a lot of running this season because of the hamstring, so the fitness side of things is a little down,” Stubbs said.
“But I know I run good come the big races and I know last year there were a couple in the semi-finals and final that sort of choked. So I’m thinking that maybe if I run good and someone who is faster might not run as well as they should, then I might get the win again.”
Last year Stubbs ran in a borrowed pair of spikes, which he’d been given by sprint star Matt Shirvington years earlier.
“I’m not putting them on again,” he said.
“I’ve actually got some of my own spikes that fit me this year, which is pretty good.”
Lifelong love of Stawell Gift’s intrigue keeps John Henry coming back
By Scott Gullan
Herald Sun March 31, 2010
JOHN Henry pauses. He has been asked to put into words the beauty of pro running.
“The amateur running I find absolutely boring,” he said. “What I love about pro running is the intrigue, not only at Stawell, but at every meeting you go to.”
For the best part of half a century, Henry has been involved in the intrigue as a runner, bookmaker’s clerk and coach. He hasn’t missed a Stawell Gift carnival since 1962 and remembers vividly the first time his father took him to Australia’s famous footrace in 1948, when he was six.
After leaving school, Henry had a few professional fights as a boxer before turning to running. He won his first race, a heat of the 70m, at Pakenham.
“I was in the red and it poured down with rain but I got up,” he said.
A couple of times he thought he was a chance at Stawell and in 1975 he won his heat but then ran into the man many regard as the greatest runner to have graced Central Park, Madagascar’s Jean-Louis Ravelomanantsoa.
“When the gun went it felt like I had only gone two strides and he was past me,” Henry said. “It was actually probably more like halfway down the straight but it felt like he’d picked me up that quick. The track was wet, it was like a quagmire, and to win it off scratch like that was an enormous run.”
In 1978 Henry hung up the spikes and became involved in what many believe to be the most important side of the caper - betting. As a bookmaker’s clerk, he has seen, or been a part of, some of the great stings.
“It’s changed a hell of a lot,” he said. "At your normal meetings you used to be able to earn a quid, but these days the runners don’t back themselves like they used to, stables don’t back themselves like they used to.
“Back in the old days, a race like the Bendigo Gift was worth 1000 to the winner and on top of that came the winnings from betting. That was a lot of money then and you had guys coming down from interstate and winning enough money to build a house or flats.”
Henry’s best betting story is a plunge that failed. In 1986 he was associated with a stable that had set a runner, Chris Ryan, to win the Gift.
“He was out at about 10m and we went in and got 33-1, backed him into 6-4 on the Friday night,” he said.
“He had a fairly easy heat, so we made sure he won but didn’t run too quick. There were two other runners who went faster in the heats, so we have gone there on the Monday morning and they’ve pushed him out to 33s again. So we have gone into him again.”
Ryan finished third behind the Neil King-trained “Vern” Chapman and Robert Ballard, who ended up representing Australia as a sprinter.
“Fancy going there thinking you can win Stawell and you strike two blokes on the novice mark having their first go and they end up to be great runners,” Henry said.
He started coaching in 1998 but said it was only in the past five years he had nailed down the caper.
While he has runners littered through three states, most of his 15-man squad trains out of Werribee.
At the weekend, one of his runners, David Tinney, won the Don Furness Memorial 70m sprint at St Bernard’s, the third time in four years a Henry-trained runner has won.
“We go where the money is,” Henry said. "That win on the weekend took us up to over $40,000 we have won this season but having said that only $12,000$13,000 of that we have won in Victoria.
“We go to Tasmania, we go to the big races in NSW and South Australia. A couple of years ago I even took the squad over to Scotland where we won about 20 races.”
He said there was an art to training a professional runner.
“As a coach you are not just trying to train a bloke to run fast, you are picking the right races and trying to organise everything,” Henry said.
"Two things must happen for somebody to win: they must be running well and their handicap must be right.
“If either of them are not spot-on, then they can’t win.”
In other words, the aim is to beat the handicapper.
“I don’t know anything about running dead,” Henry said with a smile.
"I have a theory that you plan for each of your runners to at least try and win their expenses for the season.
“If they are running and can travel all over the place and it’s not costing them, you have a happy runner. If they are happy, they will give their best.”
The Stawell Gift has eluded Henry so far. This year he has a few chances in Tinney (8.75m), John Adams (6.75m), Kevin Brittain (7.5m), Matthew Hargreaves (7m), Peter Walsh (7.75m) and Matthew Callard (8.75m).
“Somewhere along the line, they’ll be looking at one of my people and trying to figure out what is going on,” Henry said, in keeping with the intrigue he loves.
Youngy,
In the article Stubbs said he ran a pb in Queensland. Would he run the risk of being penalised for that and maybe being moved back from 4m to say 3.5m.
It is definitely looming as a pretty even contest at this stage.
The handicap mark was announced & published after he ran the PB.
I doubt it would have had any effect. For a runner off 4.0m - he would need to be in better than 10.66 shape to be in with any chance.
Jacob Groth (3.25m) is only 0.75m behind Stubbs and has a PB of 10.44.
Mitchell Watt has run 10.37 and has 2.50m.
Historically those who win off the novice mark of 7.0m or around that mark have been around 10.70 shape. The further back you are the more sub 10.7 you have to be.
The intrigue is that we only find that out after the event as per Stubbs in 2009!
Stubbs ran 10.66 (0.0) in the heats and then 10.81 (+0.6) in the final, so he is either not in shape for multiple rounds or has more left in him but didn’t want to show it in order to not jeopardize his Stawell Gift mark.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/watt-time-will-win-stawell/story-e6frf9if-1225848079570
Watt time will win Stawell?
By John Salvado
Herald-Sun
31st March 2010
Mitchell Watt competes in the long jump at the 2009 IAAF
Athletics World Championships in Berlin.
But this weekend he sprints at Stawell. Picture:AFP Source:
IT’S a question long-jumper Mitchell Watt is looking forward to having answered this weekend. Just how fast can he run?
On the available evidence, the answer is very fast indeed for the Queenslander, who won bronze in the long jump at last year’s world championships.
He will line-up against another non-specialist in the sprint - pole vault world champ Steve Hooker.
In a rare outing over 100m on the Gold Coast last year, Watt clocked a slick 10.37 seconds using a borrowed set of starting blocks and wearing long jump spikes.
That effort was enough for the Victorian Athletic League handicappers to give him a tough mark of 2.5m for his debut appearance in the 129th edition of the Stawell Gift.
"I think I can go quicker than that,’’ Watt said today.
"I want to do some more 100s this season just to get a bit of a grasp on how much I have improved.
"And I’m just excited about racing in the Gift.
"It’s a nice change of pace from the long jump, so I’ll be a bit less nervous than usual.’’
With Australia’s leading 100m sprinters Patrick Johnson, Aaron Rouge-Serret and Matt Davies all absent, much of the interest in Stawell will be on the performances of Watt and world and Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker.
The pair were roommates at the world indoor championships a couple of weeks ago in Doha and have been indulging in some good-natured ribbing ahead of their Gift debuts.
"We’ve been having a go at each other ever since,’’ Watt said.
"Steve called me the other day and tried to tell me he wasn’t feeling all that good.
"But it’ll be fun and I hope we both make it to the final.’’
Hooker will race off a mark of 5.5m, with Bola Lawal the backmarker off 0.5m in the 120m handicap event.
Watt has had to scale back his training in the last six weeks because of a groin complaint, but has been assured by his doctor and physio that it won’t affect his sprinting.
Coach Gary Bourne said the 22-year-old Watt was looking forward to having a crack at the specialist sprinters.
"I’ve done some hand-timing of Mitch in training, but often you’re standing at the end of the track in the evening,’’ said Bourne.
"I’m not prepared to say if those times I’m getting are spot on.
"But he looks pretty good.’’
Retired Australian long jumper David Culbert - himself a former Gift semi-finalist - said Watt’s run of 10.37 last year made him Australia’s fastest-ever long jumper, surpassing Olympic silver medallists Gary Honey and Jai Taurima.
Despite spending most of his life in Queensland, Watt was born in Ballarat - about an hour down the highway from Stawell.
And he still has a lot of relatives living in the area, meaning he will enjoy plenty of support at Central Park.
The heats of the Gift are on Saturday, with the semi-finals and final on Easter Monday.
Bookies wary of Stawell smokey
By Rod Nicholson
Herald Sun
April 01 2010
HUGE plunges are expected when TAB Sportsbet opens its Stawell Gift market at noon today.
While punters will be looking for the “smokey” who has beaten the handicapper, many with intimate knowledge of the professional sprinters’ training groups are poised to pounce.
At a past Gift winners’ breakfast yesterday, bookies and runner’s camps were anxiously awaiting the release of the market for the 129th running of the Easter Monday event.
Last year, supporters of New South Wales sprinter Chris Hickey orchestrated a well-organised plunge, backing him from his opening quote of $41 into $3.80 favourite to win $40,000.
But in a shock development, Hickey was re-handicapped by 1.5m after a marathon stewards’ inquiry. Officials determined that he had failed to declare a series of times he ran in 2005 on his entry form. He ran disappointingly and has not entered the Gift this year.
TAB Sportsbet’s Glenn Munsie said he expected betting on the Gift to surpass last year’s turnover.
“I’m expecting five days of action, but obviously the keen athletic people will be looking to get in first to snap up the odds,” he said.
The Gift handicapper has Nigerian international Bola Lawal off 0.5m and Australian world championships representative Anthony Alozie off 0.75m.
Defending champion Aaron Stubbs will jump from 4m, while world championship bronze medallist long jumper Mitchell Watt will run off 2.5m.
Olympic and world pole vault champion Steve Hooker will run off 5.5m, the same mark as Queensland teenager Tom Gamble, who ran 10.73 for 100m to claim bronze at the national junior titles in Sydney last month.
Betting commenced and within minutes significant punges have been made on Kevin Brittain and Adam Burbridge. Each are now paying $3.50 which is 5/2.
KEVIN BRITTAIN (running off 7.50) was narrowly beaten last year in his semi final by Brendan Matthews. Brittain ran 12.16 off 7.50m and has been allocated the same mark for this year’s Gift. He won the 120m Northcote Gift on debut three years ago (as a teenager) & the 70m Don Furness Classic in 2009 before running at Stawell. This year he has won a couple of non-penalty backmarker races. Watching him run, it’s been patently obvious he has been waiting for this. Not sure how he’s been able to retain the mark after running 12.16 last year - that should have put him back at least 0.25m if not a half metre. But that’s the way it goes and good luck to him - he will need to have improved at least 1 metre to be a serious threat. He is a member of the John Henry squad that is featured in a previous post. Henry has had a lot of success on the pro-running circuit but so far he hasn’t trained a Stawell Gift winner.
ADAM BURBRIDGE (7.25) ran 2nd in the 2001 Stawell Gift off 6.0m after he was unfairy pulled 1m by the handicapper of the day just before Stawell. For 9 years he has floated around the sport without ever seriously threatening any of the major Gifts. At times he has run out of shape and consequently run poorly. However since 2001 he has never really got much of a mark that gave him the incentive to compete as he was pulled back a fair way and stayed there for some time. He has been backwards & forwards to Jim Bradley over the last 10 years and decided over 12 months ago to go back to the 88 year old Bradley for one final crack at a major Gift. If he wins, Jim Bradley will surpass Ferg Speakman (who was 85 when he coached his fifth & final winner in 1985) as the oldest ever coach of a Stawell Gift winner. Bradley coached Steve Brimacombe (1991) and Glen Crawford (1995) to win the Stawell Gift. Both won in emphatic fashion with Crawford recording the fastest time by a winner (11.79) since electronic timing was introduced in 1982.
Well, the betting has been open for over 3 hours now and there have been some interesting fluctuations. Brittain is into $3 (2/1) and Burbridge has eased out to $5.
Others who have been well supported in the last 3 hours are
John Adams from $31 into $26.
Tom Burbidge from $31 to $21.
Doug Greenough $61 to $41
Ryan Hoffman from $101 to $51.
Mitchell Watt from $13 to $9
and the most interesting & possibly biggest mover in terms of money required to change the odds -
Ben Weaver from $34 into $17
Weaver is a young lad off the novice mark trained down on the Mornington Peninsula (Victoria) by Paul Bolton.
Burbidge is very interesting one because he has run as recently as Sunday at St Bernards, failing to show anything that would suggest he would do well over 120m at Stawell. He has had the biggest lift of any athlete this season going from 7.25m to 8.75m. He ran 12.33 in his heat last year off 7.25m so the 1.50m lift seems very generous but his recent form suggests he needs that and a lot more. he is trained by Matt Beckenham in Canberra who has 11 athletes going to Stawell.
Intriguing…
Cool…I’m up to date here constantly…hope to watch on the internet.
In my mind…I was thinking…for a Usain Bolt, what would be a fair handicap? running 130m???