Sha’Carri Richardson was the gift the Gift needed – the gift the Gift should have had last year, when arguably the biggest name in Australian sport, Gout Gout, was brought to Stawell but was unable to make the final due to handicapping.
This year, even handicappers couldn’t stop Sha’Carri Richardson.
Last year, Gout delivered the injection of interest and excitement the race needed. But it was left to look foolish when he could not even make the final.
This year, there was no such silliness.
Richardson won in what was possibly the best sprinting performance seen in Australia outside of an Olympics. That is not hyperbole. Her time of 13.15 seconds was the fastest ever run by a woman at the Gift and she did it from scratch, reining in runners who had up to a 10-metre head start.
Her first 100m of the 120m race was run in 10.76s. On a football oval.
Securing the glamour couple of world sprinting – Richardson, an Olympic gold medallist, world champion and equal fifth-fastest woman ever, and her boyfriend Christian Coleman, also a former world record holder – was a coup for the Gift.
This was glamour on another level even to Gout, who was still a schoolboy when he came here last year. He generated excitement about the race, but this year Richardson and Coleman brought glamour.
Richardson is at the peak of her career; Coleman is trying to hang on to his best.
But they are both bona fide world stars, and somehow they were persuaded that coming to Australia to run on grass in a handicapping race in a small town on the edge of the Grampians was a good idea. A bit of cash will do that.
It was money well spent. In this case, it was courtesy of the largesse once more of philanthropist and local businessman Sandy McGregor, who also last year funded Gout’s Stawell appearance.
The couple was helicoptered to Stawell, organisers taking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at his word when he told people not to do anything different this Easter despite looming fuel shortages. It was all part of the glam.
The most striking thing about Richardson, aside from her speed, is just how small she is. She is tiny, just a smidgen over five feet tall (155 centimetres). But she has a presence that has nothing to do with her size. She is powerful and quick. Waist-length plaits snake down her back, she has Baby Girl tattooed on one shoulder, and long, vividly decorated nails. She is eye-catching.
Coleman, too, had his large, diamond-encrusted watch and diamond neck chains. If the couple was faking enjoyment of the whole experience, they did a hell of a job of it. They constantly gushed about how cool it was to be in front of a big crowd that was into athletics.
They could not have been more obliging of the crowd and the endless requests for selfies and autographs.
They loved the quirkiness of the event, from the Gift distance of 120m, originating from the distance between two south Yorkshire pubs that drinkers challenged each other to race between, to running on grass between ropes towards two big trees that are just over the fence beyond the finish line.
Racing runners with a head start felt like a kids’ game of tag in the playground, Richardson said.
But most importantly, Richardson won. OK, Coleman didn’t make the final – but he also didn’t run especially well. Grass was not an ideal surface for his running style, so him not making the final can’t be put on the handicapping.
The handicapper got it absolutely right this year. The women’s Gift finished as it should – with barely a sliver of lycra or a running silk separating first and second at the line.
Poor Charlotte Nielsen, the 19-year-old, ran the race of her life, and would have won the women’s Gift in any other previous year. Running off nine metres, her time was the second fastest ever. But then, she ran into a world champion.
In the long and storied history of the Gift, this was possibly the greatest race ever run. It was one of the finest sprint races we have seen in Australia outside of major championships, and it was run on a football oval in a sheep farming town in western Victoria.
Richardson said the race would be glorified practice. And it was. It’s just that her practice is different to everyone else’s. And it was glorious. It was a gift for the Gift.
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Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.Connect via X or email.
