The Australian professional running circuit and the Victorian Athletic League, including the famous Stawell Gift, should be a viable alternative for Australia's best sprinters.

To encourage professional elite amateur athletes to compete on the professional circuit, credibility of the handicapping and stewarding has to be improved.

It is not athletes that bring the sport into disrepute, it is the way professional athletics is stewarded.

I have been involved in the sport for over 30 years and stewarding has not improved in that time. 

While the handicap system has improved in recent years there is still room for further improvement. 

Poor and inconsistent stewarding is why professional handicapped running lacks credibility, not athlete’s performances.

Stewarding must become quantified, automated and computer based. It must eliminate bias, inconsistency, selective and random stewarding that is continually confusing athletes, coaches and the public. This is what brings the sport into disrepute and tarnishes the reputation of professional athletics.

The sport needs to look to the cause of the problem. Most athletes competing in the VAL and Athletics Australia events are inconsistent at some time in the year. This is totally understandable as any good training program does not enable an athlete to peak every week for 20 weeks a year.

I feel the final straw for the current stewarding system and methods in the VAL was the singling out of a 15-year-old’s poor performance in a non- penalty race at Ararat.  To ignore her best performances during the season and previous winning performances at Stawell, shows clear deficiencies of the system.

...Moving forward we perceive the best course of action is to channel our efforts into solutions rather than dwell on the steward’s selective interpretation of the inconsistency rules and the inconsistent application of these rules.  These efforts can only help to seek solutions to improve the credibility and public perception of our great sport and the iconic and famous Stawell Gift.

Inconsistent performances should be measured as a deviation (improvement) from an athlete’s personal best performance.  This is their fastest rpm (rate per metre) or best performance over the distance they are competing in.  This would not allow stewards/handicappers the ability to select poor performances against which they apply the inconsistency rules.  This is in line with the spirit of the sport, as athletes should be, or are handicapped on their best performances not their worst or slowest performances.

The allowable improvement deviation from an athlete’s PB rpm would need to be set at a reasonable level...Whatever is finally agreed on should be transparently available and advertised accordingly.

Stewards are damned if they do and damned if they don't at the moment, when assessing performances. Inconsistent running is irrelevant..it is the improvement from previous best performance that is important to the credibility of pro-running. 

A transparent computer based stewarding system would alleviate the pressure and responsibility placed on stewards when assessing performances.  Once a race is completed and the performance is entered, the system would simply and automatically calculate any deviation from the athlete’s PB that exceeds the allowable improvement threshold.

The athlete could then be suspended from further participation in that event if the improved performance was in a heat or semi. If it was a final they would be ineligible to receive any prize money.

The onus would be on the athlete to run more often, bringing down their PB’s and be within the improvement acceptable range.

These changes would be a radical overhaul and change for professional running but a necessary one if the sport is to gain credibility and the confidence of athletes, the media and the public.

Therefore, if an athlete’s goal is to win a big race, for example the Stawell Gift, they would have to ensure their PB is within the acceptable range or run a new PB leading into the race, to ensure they were within the improvement allowed deviation. The PB could be run at any Athletics Australia or professional meet.  This would also enable the handicapper to more accurately handicap races, resulting in closer finishes and more elite athletes being more competitive.

This would also encourage participation by athletes and elite sprinters, as they could then run without fear of putting in a bad performance.  Ultimately this would assist the growth of many minor meetings on the VAL circuit with greater participation, with a greater depth and quality of athlete on the circuit while still catering for grass roots athletics (juniors, masters and elite).

Athletes with goals to win big races would not have to avoid running to hide their form as everything hinges on their PB and improvement on that PB.

YOUNG ATHLETES: As young athletes can and do improve significantly from year to year they would have to continually improve PB’s to qualify so as not to breach the improvement thresholds rules.

AGING ATHLETES: Opposite to young athletes, ageing athletes’ performances decline over time. Once an athlete turns 35 years it would be their PB in the past three years rather than life time PB from which the performance improvements would be measured. This would protect ageing and masters athletes, ensuring they continue to run and are encouraged to compete and maintain healthy lifestyles.

This system puts the onus back on the athlete to improve their PB to be eligible to run. Every athletes PB rpm would be publicly available on the VAL website, improving transparency and the credibility of professional athletics stewarding and handicapping, leading to a creditable and consistent system-based stewarding which has been missing from pro-running since inception...

- Peter O’Dwyer