Ballarat Athletic Club is putting up an innovative cash incentive to lure the cream of Australian sprinting ranks to its men’s and women’s gifts at the City Oval on February 9 and 10.
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A $500 purse will go the quickest heat runner – based on metres covered per second – in each of the gifts.
Club joint president Peter Emerson said it was the nature of handicap racing that the fastest competitor on any day did not always win because of the marks on which they started.
Handicaps will have no bearing on deciding the winner of the new category. This is all about pure foot speed, no matter how much of the full race distance of 120m athletes cover.
He said this new prize would reward the fastest performers in the gift heats, calculated on metres per second – no matter where they finished.
The idea is the brainchild of BAC committee member and veteran athlete Peter O’Dwyer.
The club believes it is a first in Australian professional athletics.
Emerson said the club hoped that the incentive would help attract the best runners on the circuit to Ballarat.
He said even though an athlete off a backmark might be facing a tough assignment to take out the big prizemoney in the final, they could go to the City Oval knowing an impressive heat run could land them a substantial financial return.
“It’s an exciting concept – one which we’re sure will appeal to the athletes.”
The addition $500 means the Ballarat Gift and Ballarat Women’s Gift will each be worth $8100.
The Ballarat Gift meet returns to the upgraded City Oval – one of the original homes of the event – after extended periods at the Northern Oval, Eastern Oval and Wendouree’s CE Brown Reserve.
Masters and little athletes will again have a major presence at the two-day carnival. The masters program will feature a $2000 300m as well as a 120m and frontmarkers’ open 400m.
The BAC has already attracted more than 200 little athletic entries.
Ballarat Gift Carnival entries close on Friday, with gift heats on the Saturday and finals on the Sunday.
