Australia's Elite Flock to Leonora

posted by rtross on October 5, 2009, 4:38am

The Leonora Golden Gift is a unique and prestigious athletics carnival held May 30-31st in the West Australian outback. The event carries $53,000AUD in prize money and has attracted the cream of Australian middle distance running in its 6 year history.

For an elite runner, the Leonora experience is like no other. Leonora, a town approximately ten hours drive east from Perth rides the wave of success and failure based on the mining industry. In that way, the people of Leonora relate to the ups and downs faced by runners in races and training. During such tough economic times, this event will lighten up and entertain the Leonora township and district like no other event on the annual calendar.

craig huffer

2009 has attracted a star line-up with very classy top ends in both the men's and women's races. On the men's side confirmed starters include Collis Birmingham (Australian record holder over 10,000m and a 3:37 1500m runner), Jeremy Roff (Berlin World Champs representative and a 3:37 1500m runner) and a number of local Western Australian runners, including Chris de Boer (1:48 800m runner). On the women's side there is Lisa Corrigan (Australian record holder over one mile and Beijing Olympic games representative for the 1500m), Kaila McKnight (2nd at the 2009 Australian 1500m championships) and Nikki Molan (2008 Australian 1500m champion).

The calibre of athletes attracted this year is quite impressive when considering the 2008-2009 Australian 1500m rankings lists. On the men's side we have two athletes ranked top four in the country (Birmingham 2nd and Roff 4th). While on the women's side we have three athletes ranked within the top five (Corrigan 1st, McKnight 2nd and Molan 5th). Such high class top end line-ups for both the men's and women's races, have never before been seen at the gift.

Elite Prize Money (all AUD) for the Elite Men's and Women's Mile

leonora

- First: $6000 plus gold nugget

- Second: $4000

- Third: $2000

- Fourth: $1500

- Fifth: $1000

- Sixth: $750

- Seventh: $500

- Eighth: $250

In events other than the mile, top Western Australian sprinters such as Jody Henry (ranked 3rd in Australia over 100m and 200m for the 2008-9 season and recently was part of the 4 by 400m women's relay team who ran a qualifying time for the world championships in Berlin later this year), and Felipe de Castro Cruz (ranked equal 5th in Australia over 400mH for 2008-9 season) will be attending, adding a great deal of depth and class to the minor events on offer.

Results, videos, and a full race review will be available here on runnerstribe.com within 24 hours post race.