NEW YEAR’S DAY BRINGS BACK A UNIQUE SPORTING MEMORY!
Many Australians are not aware that when it comes to organised World Sport, Australia has always led the way.
For example, organised world football (soccer) was started in 1888, then known as the Football League in the UK.
Australian Football, however, started way back in the 1850’s, way ahead of anywhere else.
When it comes to athletics, Australia has led the way here as well.
Professional foot racing started in the 1870’s, thanks to the Gold Fields in Victoria.
This was many years before the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.
The Stawell Gift in Victoria was first run in 1876, with the Burnie Gift in Tasmania starting a little later in 1887.
Both events are recognised as the longest-running annual organised continuous sporting events in the history of world sport.
In their ‘Hey Days’, particularly from the 1920’s to the 1980’s, winning these prestigious races was one of the biggest things you could do in Australian Sport.
Not so much today, but back in those heady days to win the coveted ‘sash’ was the optimum thing you could do on the athletics sporting field!
It certainly was the case in 1975 when the Burnie Gift in Tasmania was won by former Tasmanian and NSW sprinter, and managing editor of your Friendly Bay Islander, Gerard Thompson.
What made the Burnie Gift unique was that it was held every year on New Year’s Day and became such a tradition, that up to 22,000 people would attend the annual event religiously, in a town with a population of 17,000!
“To win the Burnie Gift was something special in my family,” Gerard Thompson recalls.
“Burnie Gift winners were spoken about with reverence when I was a young lad, with me getting involved with sport, and athletics in particular, at both Christian Brothers St Virgil’s College in Hobart and Marist College in Burnie, Tasmania.
“It was particularly unique and special in my family.
“Clearly there was a running ‘gene’ at work.
“My Uncle, Ray Geary, was a family hero when he won the big annual race in 1944. In 1949 his first cousin and my second cousin, Ashton Shirley, won the Burnie Gift. I was to win in 1975, and my first cousin Michael Geary won in 1982.
“They were treated as Tasmanian heroes for all their lives, living in the Apple Isle.”
Gerard Thompson, ironically, started out a a major level winning a State amateur championship in NSW in 1967 before returning to Tasmania to turn ‘pro’ in 1969.
Before winning the 1975 Burnie Gift, he managed to win Gifts in nearly every town in Tasmania during the early 1970’s in distances from 75 metres to one mile, believe or not!
At the end of his career he had won 13 professionals gifts and countless other races over 75 metres, 120 metres (the Gift distance), 200 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres and mile!
He was the first ever runner to run under 12 seconds to win the Burnie Gift, winning it in 11.8 second off 8.25 metres handicap in 1975.
The race is now in its 137th year and is now run on New Year’s Eve rather than New Year’s Day, but that’s another contentious story)
But it is still a special New Year’s Day memory!
• Gerard Thompson (third left) winning the 1975 Burnie Gift.
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