The Stawell Gift is the richest foot race in the country but some felt the iconic event made a blunder as sprint sensations Gout Gout and Lachlan Kennedy appeared handicapped out of it — and officials have suggested they may have got it wrong.
The 2025 edition of the iconic handicap race was able to attract the biggest name in Australian sprinting largely due to local farmer-turned-businessman Sandy McGregor paying teen phenom Gout a $50,000 appearance fee.
It saw crowds flock to Central Park over the Easter weekend to watch both Gout and Kennedy. But in the end, fans were left disappointed after both men were bundled out in the semi-finals, unable to overcome their harsh handicaps.
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With Gout off 1m and Kennedy off 0.25m, they were always facing an uphill battle to chase down rival sprinters, who had a big head start.
And while Victorian Athletics League (VAL) officials defended the handicap system, they admitted they would look at the handicaps given to Gout and Kennedy moving forward, as they said Kennedy at least deserved to make the final.
“Did they run at their best? I don’t think Gout did. Kennedy was close,” VAL president Matt McDonough told ABC News.
McDonough said organisers came up with the handicaps by taking the athletes’ best two times over the last four seasons, averaging them out and then used the result against a target time of 12.25 seconds.
“I think that maybe … is our target time, right? That [time of 12.25] to get, to get Kennedy in that final, and maybe (he) should have been in that final.
“I think that’s some sort of adjustment we’ll just need to have a look at in the future to see whether we’ve got our times right, that the back markers can achieve it.”
The eventual Gift winner John Evans never looked in any danger of losing any of his races, leading many to believe a flaw in the handicap system was again exploited.
Ideally in handicapped races, if it is done right, all runners should cross the line at the same time, making for an incredible viewing spectacle.
However, the fact the two fastest men in the country weren’t close to getting into the final seemingly pointed to handicappers getting it wrong.
Since its first running in 1878, the Gift has been all about runners setting themselves up for a nice handicap and whoever often massages the system the best finds themselves going home with a $40,000 payday.
There have even been stories of runners deliberately underperforming in lead-up events to get favourable handicaps.
And while there is no suggestion any runner in this year’s Gift did that, it is a major worry with the handicap system.
Even eventual Gift winner Evans admitted he felt he hit the jackpot with a 9.75m handicap.
“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 after the race.
“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.”
However, McDonough said organisers were confident that they got their handicap system largely right.
“There [are] probably some out there that are just trying to milk as much as they can out of the handicap system, but we’re a lot more comfortable now than what it used to be, say, 10-20 years ago when a lot of that was happening with our handicap system,” he said.
“People asking where John Evans came from, he has been known to us. He’s been around for a long time. He’s already won a race this season. So he was one of the favourites leading in — we don’t generally have the smokies that we used to have because of the way we approach it.”
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