High Camp athlete Olivia Attard secured a top spot in this year’s Stawell Gift, winning the 1600-metre Open Frontmarkers Handicap ahead of a stacked field.
Now in its 142nd year, the Stawell Gift takes place annually on Easter weekend and invites some of the top athletes from around Victoria to compete in a range of running events from 70m sprints to middle-distance 1600m races.
Attard placed third in the 800m Women’s Handicap on Saturday before winning the 1600m event on Sunday with a time of 4:00.035, two seconds ahead of second-placed Natalie Densley.
The weekend was also an emotional one for Attard, as she ran in honour of three friends – her former boss, a colleague, and close friend Corey – who all passed away ahead of the event.
“I still feel like it’s a dream, we had some really bad news that day so coming into the race I thought I would run for them. I put red and yellow headbands in and thought, ‘I’ll give it my all’,” she said.
“In the last 200 metres I realised I could do it, so I just sprinted and then looked around and thought ‘what just happened?’.”
Attard began in Little Athletics at the age of seven and has been coached by Seymour’s Kelvin Lubeck as part of the Kelfit group since she was 11 years old.
Attard said the next goal was to complete a full marathon before returning for another season of track competition next summer.
