In the year 1895, the Victorian Athletic League (VAL) was founded and 128 years later you will still find athletes competing in the historic competition.
Often referred to as pro running or "pros", many people may be familiar with the competition through its culminating event, the Stawell Gift. However, this is just one event on a calendar full of historic race meets allowing sprinters and long-distance runners to compete for cash prizes.
But what makes this competition so unique is that it operates under a handicapped system of racing. Handicapped racing is the idea that all athletes are given a fair and equal opportunity to win in their chosen event, by utilising what could be referred to as a staggered start.
Now this is different from a staggered start that you might see in the 200m sprint at the Olympics as all athletes are staggered to account for the curve in the track. But in the VAL, all athletes are staggered according to their ability no matter the event.
Handicapped racing aims to level the playing field by assigning each athlete a mark (handicap) based on their past performances, allowing athletes of different abilities, ages and often genders to compete against one another.
This form of competition is also utilised in sports like horse racing and golf, with the Melbourne Cup being a specific example of a race that uses this system. Horses are assigned a weight based on their past performance, with better-performing horses carrying more weight and vice versa.
Similarly, with golf, a more skilled player will have a lower handicap and a less experienced player will have a higher handicap. The VAL usually hosts their premier races over a distance of 120m and a typical race line-up might look something like this.
Mason Keast - 9.75m
Hamish Adams - 9.5m
Brendan Matthews - 7.5m
Gary Finegan - 5.25m
Matthew Rizzo - 4.5m
Jacob Despard - 4.25m
With the meterage being the given handicap for each sprinter, the theory is that if all athletes were handicapped correctly and all ran to their absolute best ability they should cross the finish line at the same time.
Runners on the pro circuit wear coloured tops corresponding to their starting position in the race. The runner at the front of the field is referred to as the "frontmarker" and in a six-person race would wear the pink colour. Conversely, the runner starting at the back of the field is called the "backmarker" and always wears red.
In the above race the runner in red is Olympian Jacob Despard, who is one of Australia's 10 fastest runners of all time, hence his starting position as the backmarker.
On occasion, a runner will run off what is referred to as the "scratch" mark, or a 0m handicap. This means that they have been given no handicap at all and are set to run the full distance of the race and chase down their competitors. But only two runners have ever won the coveted Stawell Gift from that mark.
Dual Olympian and eight-time Australian national champion Josh Ross, who is not only one of three athletes to have won the event twice but managed to do so one of those times off scratch. The second athlete to have won off scratch is Jean-Louis Ravelomanantsoa, a Malagasy athlete who did so in 1975.
The Victorian Athletic League is a circuit-based sport similar to that of tennis or Formula One whereby athletes compete week to week in varying locations around Victoria. However, athletes will often venture interstate to compete in neighbouring states' bigger events such as Tasmanian Athletic League's Burnie Gift or South Australia Athletic League's Bay Sheffield Carnival.
But the biggest race in the nation (and the richest in the world) is Victorian Athletic League's Stawell Gift, which boasts a winning prize of $40,000 for both the men's and women's 120m race winner and draws competitors from around the globe.
The race meet is run over the Easter weekend each year and has seen big names come to compete such as former 100m world record holder Asafa Powell, 400m gold medallist Cathy Freeman, 100m Olympic and world champion Linford Christie and 100m world champion Kim Collins to name a few.
The VAL circuit is not only for sprint athletes with events ranging from 70m to 3200m giving both the aerobic and anaerobic athletes a chance to pick up some cash.
The 2024/2025 VAL season kicked off this past weekend with events in Cobden and Mortlake, with all athletes hoping to find some form come March for the historic Stawell Gift.