Above: All go … Robert Lehmann crosses the line first in the Keilor Gift. 60463
By Michael Esposito
ROBERT Lehmann rated his Keilor Gift victory on Saturday night as one of the best in his illustrious career.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that at 39, Lehmann’s hopes of winning a gift would be fast fading, but the Ballarat runner said this was one of his greatest performances yet.
“It was fantastic, throughout my career that’s probably the best last 30 (metres) I ever ran I think,” he said.
Once Lehmann accelerated at the 70m mark, there was no stopping him. Starting from a 10.75m handicap, Lehmann pipped last year’s winner and even-money favourite Cam Dunbar (Ringwood East) in a time of 12.595 seconds.
“The way I ran in the semi-final I thought if I replicate that in the final it’s mine for the taking, and I ran the perfect final,” Lehmann said.
“To be honest it was a bit of a blur. The first 70 I just sort of got through it but 40 out I pushed the go button and there was a lot there to go with.”
Lehmann said he was “over the moon” with the win, particularly after finishing a narrow second behind stablemate Nathan Fox in Ararat one week before.
“I’ve made pretty muchevery other final on the Victorian Athletics League circuit but I hadn’t made a Keilor final. I was just determined to make this final and to win it was just massive.
“I won a Bendigo in ’98 but Keilor’s obviously up there with Bendigo. Outside of the Stawell there’s another three or four that you really want and Keilor’s one of them, so I’ve got it and I can nearly retire on that I think,” he said.
Lehmann never felt as if clocking the fastest time in heats assured him of a strong performance in the final, because of the sporadic strong winds throughout the day.
“The wind had been fluky all day it had been up and down and I didn’t know how accurate the times were.”
He attributed his longevity partly to the 12 runners he coaches in Ballarat.
“They keep me young, they keep me keen, they keep me going,” he said.
Now Lehmann can relax a bit more for the rest of the season.
“I just want to finish this season and run well. The monkey’s off the back now so I can just enjoy the season, and just make the most of it, and focus on my runners now.”
Other finalists in the Gift, in order from third to sixth, were Darren Whittaker (Mordialloc), first-time qualifier in a Gift final Augustine Carty-Cowling (West Footscray), Josh Tiu (Doncaster) and Matthew Mifsud (Coburg).
In other events, Brunswick’s Dan Martin won the 70m skins invitational while Ballarat’s Adam Ratcliffe won an extraordinarily close 400m open in a race where just .02 seconds separated the top three runners.
SA’s Ben Crawford comfortably won the 800m open while Bendigo’s Kirrily Burnett made up plenty of ground to take the women’s 800m.
The 1600m backmarkers race was dominated by the frontmarkers, with Vermont’s Sean Quilty taking first prize.
