A highlight of the 2021 Stawell Gift Carnival was the AIA Vitality Invitation 3200 metres which featured the Olympic runner Stewart McSweyn.
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Although unable to overcome his severe handicap, his time of 8 min 19 sec broke the 3200 metre track record from scratch, previously held by Craig Mottram.
Down through the years champion distance runners have captured the imagination of lovers of athletics.
In 1912 and again in 1913, Herb Hedemann won both the Federation Mile and the Grampian Stakes two miles on the same day.
The Stawell Athletic Club in 1958 recognised this notable achievement by naming its prestigious Backmarkers Invitation mile after him.
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One of the most amazing runs ever witnessed at Stawell took place in 1935 when the relatively unknown amateur runner, Alan Morgan, running in bare feet from a mark of 160 yards blitzed the field in the Grampian Stakes two miles.
Morgan went out strongly from the start and the crowd expected that it would be impossible for him to maintain the pace, but instead he actually increased it to run out an easy winner, in fact he almost lapped the back markers.
However the stewards were not impressed and he was disqualified for incorrect performances
He repeated the performance two days later at Bendigo and became a household name in professional athletics when at Wangaratta on Australia Day in 1937 he set an official Australian professional record of 9 min 23.5 secs for the two miles.
An even greater runner was the Tasmanian Malcolm "Mick" Goss.
In 1939 he won the two mile event at Stawell from the back mark and set a new track record.
At Bendigo in the same year he won both the mile and the two mile events, the first time this triple success had been achieved , and he repeated this success again in the following year.
In 1941 he reached the pinnacle of his brilliant career when at Stawell he set a new Professional World Record of 9min 11.1 secs. Running from scratch, he came fourth in the event.
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Club Legends John McCracken and Harry Downes were dominant figures in distance events from the late 1950s until 1969.
Both won seven events and four Hedemann Backmarkers invitations. Their rivalry culminated in the Mile of the Century in 1964 with both runners starting from scratch.
McCracken was the winner in a close finish in the time of 4.02.08
From that time on Downes, the first professional athlete to break four minutes for the mile, asserted his superiority by winning four of the next five Hedemann Invitations, all from scratch.
Other multiple winners who had won at least once from the scratch mark were Peter Sheales, Chris Fisher Viv Woodward and Club Legend Dean Paulin who in his career won six events at Stawell
Another legend was Alan "Dizzy" Lynch, who in 1980 and 1981 equalled Herb Hedemann's record of winning the 1600 and 3200 metre events in the same year.
He made it three wins in a row when he again won the 3200 metres in 1982, while included in his seven Stawell victories was the 1987 Hedmann Invitation.
His brother Darren who also had five Stawell victories won the Hedemann in 1993 and 1997.
Notable overseas runners to compete at Stawell were the 1976 Montreal 1500 metres Gold Medalist, New Zealand's John Walker.
He was not successful but this was not the case for Collins Cheboi from Kenya who dramatically won the Herb Hedemann Invitation from scratch in 2011.
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