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5 unusual facts about Stawell Gift


1929 VFL season

Clarrie Hearn of Essendon won the 1929 130-yard Stawell Gift in 11.9375 seconds (eleven and fifteen sixteenths of a second), off a handicap of 10 yards.

1938 VFL season

Geelong half-back flanker Jack Grant won the 1938 130-yard Stawell Gift in eleven and eleven-sixteenths seconds, off a handicap of 11½ yards.

1952 VFL season

Essendon winger Lance Mann wins the 1952, 130-yard Stawell Gift in eleven and fourteen-sixteenths seconds, off a handicap of 7¼yards; his team-mate, half-back flanker Norm McDonald, running off a handicap of 5 yards, comes second.

Burnie Gift

Burnie Carnival is the premier running carnival in Tasmania and is on a par with Victoria's Stawell Gift and the Bay Sheffield in South Australia.

Fergie Speakman

Ferg Speakman (1900 to 1990) was an athletics coach who trained runners primarily on the Australian professional running circuit including five winners of the Stawell Gift - the most by any coach in the history of the race.



see also

Josh Ross

In 2005, he again won the Stawell Gift – this time from the honoured scratch mark time, becoming only the second athlete to achieve this feat (behind Madagascar's Jean-Louis Ravelomanantsoa in 1975) and the first Australian.