2024 Maryborough 120m Women's Gift

An interesting Maryborough gift for the women this year. After seeing Danielle Shaw destroy this race last year in one of the performances of the season (in this person's opinion!) and Bree Masters line up with an excellent 3rd place off scratch it's a shame to see the numbers down a little for a $15,000 gift. 25 have entered and the backies show some strength with Jess Payne off 2.75m.

She'll be joined by Grace Kelly and Zoe Neale off 4.5m whilst we welcome to Princes Park, Olympian Morgan Mitchell to run from the mark of 4.75m! Mitchell last went down the VAL track in 2015 at Stawell where she ran an incredible 53.60 off 3m in the Women's 400m in the heats before placing 2nd in the final so it's great to see her line up in the gift at Maryborough!

Wang Lecouter has been in form and will definitely be getting some attention running from 6.75m along with Rutherford from 8.5m and Iyer off 9.75m after running 4th in the final here in 2023 along with taking out the Ringwood 200m and making the final of the Women's 70m at Stawell.

As the famous Mika once said: "I tried to be like Grace Kelly, mmmmm" and they will be wishing they are like GK when she wins here

Pick of the yard is the battle of the hyphens, Wang-lecouteur 1st and Suares-Jury in a close 2nd

Best Bets wrote:As the famous Mika once said: "I tried to be like Grace Kelly, mmmmm" and they will be wishing they are like GK when she wins here

If they want to be like her it would probably help if they entered. A $15,000 race, 25 have entered, who knows how many will turn up. And given how many athletes (both men and women) aren't remotely interested in even looking like they're trying of late, how many are really competing for it? This has to be the easiest money in the history of pro running and the winner also gets the Stawell bonus for good measure.

Can anybody explain what's going on with the fluctuation in womens entries? Neither Cobden or Mortlake had enough for semi finals, but Warrnambool had exactly the same amount of women run as men. One suggestion I heard with Cobden and Mortlake was the 70m was open rather than a seperate womens and mens race, so they apparently only had one sprint to enter. But Maryborough has a womens 70m (with 22 entered) and also an open 200m, so the women have plenty of options and surely that puts paid to that suggestion. I get that the first two meetings were early but that was the case for everybody.

Are women still being encouraged to boycott specific meetings? That's the only sense I can make of this. A lot don't realise but the VAL made it compulsory to match mens and womens prize money this season. Do meetings who were late to the table such as Maryborough now have a black mark against their name amongst certain people?

There are a lot of things we can be penalised for in this sport, but encouraging people to boycott meetings should be a massive offence. So many meetings are getting by year by year and forever wondering if they can go again, and they’re up against this type of conduct bringing their hard work undone. There have also been so many instances of local volunteers being walked all over by 'volunteers' amongst the VAL community with their own agenda and the locals are losing interest in droves. People who've just quietly gone about their business for years, often with no interest in pro running but just love to help out, now the running is becoming secondary to the politics and they're wondering why they should bother.

Hopefully people get to read this, unfortunately any time a male dares to go near the topic of prize money these days they're being silenced. Prize money is another matter that I might post about another day but I’ve posted this looking for answers about entries and have been diplomatic.

I think the lower entries overall are due to any of the following factors.

1. There's plenty of options such as Devonport 29th, and Burnie 31st, as well as the Bay Sheffield 27th/28th where athletes prefer to run instead of Maryborough.

2. Being on New Years Day a lot of athletes aren't interested in competing due to being on holidays etc.

3. No POD squad entries, which is at least a heats worth of athletes.

4. No Vikings squad in attendance, which again is roughly another heats worth, both POD and Vikings squad were in attendance at Warrnambool.

5. The 12m limit - anyone who's on more than 12m is unlikely to enter.

6. Cost of entry - it was $45 to enter ($55 if late) so athletes who aren't competitive probably aren't willing to spend that much on an entry fee.

I’m gonna throw the elephant in the room out there…

It’s time for Maryborough to push back a week. Why somewhat compete with Bay/Burnie. Why run on New Year’s Day when plenty seem to not want to. I understand the tradition, but this is the 2nd biggest gift of the VAL season. It’s time to find a time slot that gives it the highest possibility to succeed.