In athletics, the difference between success and failure can be less than the blink of an eye. Or more precisely in the tenths, even hundreths, of a second. For runners, a win can turn on the last-gasp stride to the line. An entire season of training can hang on that lightning moment.

The premier sprinting race in Australia is the Stawell Gift. Each Easter long weekend, the town of Stawell, population about 6000, swells for the Gift. The race was first run in 1878, just 25 years after the town was founded, first as Pleasant Creek, and then renamed as Stawell, after Sir William Foster Stawell, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and the state’s first attorney-general.

The race has been run continuously except during the Second World War and COVID. It is run over 120 metres up a slight gradient on grass, unlike major competitions such as the World Championships and the Olympics, in which athletes run on rubber surfaces. For most of the year, the field is home to the footy and cricket.

The Gift’s point of difference to other competitions is that it is a handicap event. Therein lies its character and attraction to runners. Therein, also, lies the possibility to throw up results that may confound........

© The Age