Victorian Athletic League
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Victorian Athletic League
The Victorian Athletic League organises professional footrunning events ranging from 70 to 3200 metres. The most famous of these events is the Stawell Gift which has been run since 1878 and hosts the richest footrace in Australia. Many other gifts are held around Victoria in country and metro locations including Ballarat, Bendigo, Wangaratta, Maryborough, Keilor, Yarrawonga, Ringwood, Rye and Olympic Park. Races are run under a handicap system which makes races competitive. Each race has a different handicap limit. Generally, the greater the sum of the prize money for a race, the less handicap is available, limiting the class of runners that can win. Runners are awarded prize money when making finals and bookmaking occurs at major meets. History of Professional Running The oldest professional carnival in Victoria is the Maryborough Gift which celebrated its 155th anniversary on New years Day 2016. Present Day Professional Footrunning Australia's best known footrace is the S ...
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Stawell Gift
The Stawell Gift is Australia's oldest and richest short-distance running race. It is the main event in an annual carnival held on Easter weekend by the Stawell Athletic Club, with the main race finals on the holiday Monday, at Central Park, Stawell, Victoria, Stawell in the Grampian Mountains (Australia), Grampian Mountains district of western Victoria, Australia, Victoria. the carnival encompasses events for both men and women of all ages and abilities, across distances from . The final of the iconic main race is run on grass over up a slight gradient. Competitors are Handicapping, handicapped according to their form, with each competitor "marked" by between 0 m and 10 m or more to theoretically reach the finish line at the same time. This process is administered by the Victorian Athletic League (VAL). Due to the relatively short handicap limit, the class of runners that can potentially win the event is limited compared to other Gifts in Australia. The winner is, ...
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Jana Rawlinson
Jana Pittman (born 9 November 1982) is an Australian former athlete. During her athletic career Pittman specialised in the 400 metres run and 400-metre hurdles events. She is a two-time world champion in the 400 m hurdles, from 2003 and 2007. She also won the gold medal in this event at the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games and was part of Australia's winning 4 × 400 metres relay teams at both events. Pittman is one of only ten athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Kirani James, Dani Samuels, David Storl and Faith Kipyegon) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. Pittman also competed in the two-woman bobsleigh at the 2014 Winter Olympics, making her the first Australian female athlete to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympic games. Early career Pittman attended Matthew Pearce Primary School, Crestwood High School (New South Wales), Mount St Benedict ...
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Sports Organizations Established In 1895
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve participants' physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a ''match'') is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a r ...
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Sports Governing Bodies In Victoria (Australia)
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve participants' physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a ''match'') is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a ...
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Athletics In Australia
Athletics (sport), Athletics is a popular sport in Australia, with around 34,000 athletes, officials and coaches currently registered with the national association.- Athletics Australia - Annual Report 2006/07
Though not as high-profile as sports such as Cricket, Rugby league or Rugby Union in Australia, athletics has produced many world sporting legends, including Edwin Flack, Betty Cuthbert, Herb Elliott, and Cathy Freeman. Australia has hosted many important athletics competitions, including the 1956 Summer Olympics, 1956 and 2000 Summer Olympics, 2000 Olympic Games, the 1938, 1962, 1982 and 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 1985 World Cup in Athletics, and the 1996 World Junior Championships in Athletics, World Junior Championships. Athletics Australia is the governing ...
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Dean Capobianco
Dean Capobianco (born 11 May 1970) is a former Australian athlete, known best as a Sprint (running), sprinter. He won the 1990 Stawell Gift and represented Australia in the 200 metres at the Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metres, 1992 Barcelona and Athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metres, 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Athletics In 1993, he reached his peak in the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, when he set a new personal best of 20.18 seconds over 200 metres. Capobianco won the 1990 Stawell Gift with a time of 12.29 and a handicap of . Controversy An IAAF arbitration panel found Capobianco guilty of taking anabolic steroids, 10 months after he was cleared of any doping offence in a preliminary hearing by an IAAF independent arbitrator. IAAF general secretary Istvan Gyulai said that the reinstatement of Capobianco in July 1996 following a report for Athletics Australia by Robert Ellicott, QC, was a mistake. That inquiry ...
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Steve Brimacombe
Steve Brimacombe (born 7 May 1971) is an Australian athletics coach and former runner. Under the tutelage of renowned Scottish coach Jim Bradley, Brimacombe won the 1991 Stawell Gift after only 8 months of training. At the time he was only 19 and the second youngest winner in Stawell Gift history. In December 1991, Brimacombe won the prestigious Bay Sheffield off 3.75m. On 28 December 1992, Brimacombe set a Colley Reserve track record of 12.28secs off scratch in his semi-final of the prestigious Bay Sheffield. In 1994, Brimacombe caused a huge upset when he won the Australian 200m title beating Dean Capobianco and Damien Marsh who had both run in the 200m world championship final in 1993. A fortnight after winning the Australian 200m title, Brimacombe finished 2nd in the 1994 Stawell Gift off scratch, recording 12.18secs - this equalled the Stawell track record by an Australian for 120m. In July 1994, Brimacombe was a finalist in the Commonwealth Games 200m. Brimacombe moved ...
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Jason Richardson
Jason Anthoney Richardson (born January 20, 1981) is an American former professional basketball player who played 14 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Richardson was taken by the Golden State Warriors as the fifth overall pick in the 2001 NBA draft after playing college basketball for Michigan State University. He won the NBA Dunk Contest in both 2002 and 2003, becoming the second player, after Michael Jordan, to win the competition back-to-back. Richardson has also played for the Charlotte Bobcats, Phoenix Suns, Orlando Magic, and the Philadelphia 76ers. Richardson is often remembered for his proficiency in dunking and shooting. Since 2021, Richardson has been an active player for Tri-State of the BIG3. Early life and college Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Richardson graduated from Arthur Hill High School in 1999. Having led the Arthur Hill basketball team to the Class A championship game, Richardson was Mr. Basketball of Michigan and a McDonald's High School ...
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Stawell, Victoria
Stawell (pronounced /stɔːl/, "Stawl"), is an Australian town in the Wimmera region of Victoria (Australia), Victoria west-north-west of the state capital, Melbourne. Located within the Shire of Northern Grampians Local government in Australia, local government area, it is a seat of local government for the shire and its main administrative centre. At the , Stawell had a population of . It was founded in 1853 as Pleasant Creek (nice) during the Victorian gold rush. It is one of few towns in Victoria retaining an active gold mining industry. Stawell is famed for the Stawell Gift, a professional foot race that began in 1878. It is also known as the gateway to the Grampians National Park. One of the most significant Aboriginal sacred site, Aboriginal cultural sites in south-eastern Australia is Bunjil's Shelter, within the Black Range Scenic Reserve, south of Stawell. It is named after William Stawell, Sir William Foster Stawell (1815–89), the Chief Justice of Victoria. Indi ...
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George McNeill (sprinter)
George McNeill (born 19 February 1947) is a Scottish former world professional sprint champion and the only man to have won both of the most famous professional footraces in the world – the New Year Sprint (1970) in Scotland and the Australian equivalent – the Stawell Gift (1981). McNeill had previously played professional football in the Scottish Football League for Hibernian, Greenock Morton and Stirling Albion. Football career McNeill grew up in the Scottish mining town of Tranent. He played football for the local team, Tranent Juniors, but also played rugby union for the school fifteen. In 1963 he left school aged 16 and became an apprentice quantity surveyor. While in the fifth form at Ross High School, Tranent, he was recruited by Hibernian FC as an apprentice footballer. McNeill appeared regularly in the Hibernian reserve team in five years at the club, but played in only one senior game, a 3–0 win against St Johnstone in December 1965. He transferre ...
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Madeleine Pape
Madeleine Pape (born 24 February 1984) is an Australian sociologist and former middle-distance athlete. Athletic career Pape grew up in Emerald, Victoria and was inspired to focus on running after seeing local athletes represent Australia in the 2006 Commonwealth Games. In 2008, she set a personal best of 1:59.92 in the 800 metres while winning the Sydney Athletics Grand Prix. Pape competed in the women's 800 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she finished her heat in sixth place, failing to advance to the semi-finals. Pape went on to win an 800m gold medal at the 2009 Summer Universiade in Belgrade, finishing in 2:01.91. However, in 2010, she had a tendon injury that ended her athletics career. Academic career In 2011, Pape completed a B.A. with honors, majoring in sociology, at Monash University. She then moved to the United States, where she earned an M.S. and PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her doctoral thesis examined se ...
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Melinda Gainsford-Taylor
Melinda Gainsford-Taylor (born 1 October 1971 in Narromine, New South Wales) is a retired Australian athlete, who specialised in sprint events. In 1995 Gainsford-Taylor won the World Indoor championship over 200 m. During her career she also won international medals at the World Championships and Commonwealth Games. She is the cousin of Australian Olympic backstroke swimmer Josh Watson who won silver in the Men's 4 × 100-metre medley relay at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Junior career In 1989, she won the first of three consecutive Australian Junior 100 m titles, also winning the Junior 200 m championships in 1989 and 1991. At the 1990 World Junior Championships Gainsford reached the semi-finals of both the 100 and 200 metres sprints and assisted the Australian 4 x 100 metres relay team to a new national junior record of 45.01 seconds. Senior career Although Gainsford-Taylor became a world champion in 1995, her senior career really began when she won the first of ...
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