December 14 marks a special date on the local sporting calendar, with the Seymour Gift to be held for the first time in over 20 years.
With just under a month until athletes from all over Victoria descend upon the Kings Park turf, Seymour Running Club president Blair Collins is enthusiastic about the prospect of some of the state’s best sprinters and middle-distance runners doing their thing in Seymour.
“We’re extremely excited. I mean, we met back in about March I think, there was 14 of us that met and started some initial discussions, and from that a committee was formed, and to be perfectly honest, we’re pumped,” he said.
“We’ve only got four weeks to go, we’ve got some outstanding athletes in the Seymour Community as well, and we’re just excited to bring the whole event back.”
Victorian Athletics League chief executive Shane Wylie shared a similar level of excitement to Collins, with the Seymour Gift one of two events returning to the VAL calendar this season.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to have two gifts this year return to the VAL, (last weekend we had) Lancefield, and we’ll have Seymour in four weeks,” he said.
“We are just over the moon that we are getting these towns like Seymour, a very historical town, back in the league.”
After more than two decades without the event, Collins said the impetus behind its return was primarily the success of the Kelfit program.
For the past three years, a number of locals have been successfully competing under the tutelage of VAL Trainer of the Year Kelvin Lubeck, with outstanding results contributing to the committee deciding Seymour needed its own date on the calendar.
“There were probably a few things,” Collins said of the decision.
“Obviously you’re familiar with the Kelfit program, there’s been 17-odd athletes compete over the past three years in the VAL, and last year at Stawell we had two winners, Cooper (Lubeck) and Liv Attard, so that’s also part of the reason it was brought back.”
It was over 800 metres that Cooper Lubeck triumphed in Stawell, the biggest event on the Victorian Athletics calendar, but a home gift has been the one event on his mind since starting out in the sport.
“I started about three years ago at my first meet, and ever since basically I’ve wanted to start one up here,” he said.
“Me and Kelvin (Cooper’s father) have been talking about it for the last few years, we’ve got bigger and bigger each year, so we kind of asked some people, and everyone has really joined in and helped us move along and get it up, so yeah, I’m very happy.”
Already a winner this season in the 1600m at Cobden, Cooper is looking to repeat that success at home on December 14.
“That was unexpected to be honest, it was very unexpected, I’ve been running a lot more, but I’ve been doing other things,” he said of his opening round victory.
“I really want to win Seymour 550 (metres), that’s my goal for the whole year, nothing else, I just want to win Seymour 550.
“I’m probably a fair way behind at the minute, but there’s still four weeks to go, so if I can catch up a bit, then I should be okay.”
The return is set to be a massive event too, if numbers across the first three events of the 2024-25 season are anything to go by, with Wylie stating the league has seen a huge spike in participants.
“We’ve had three events (so far), and numbers have been up about 40 per cent, so a pretty dramatic rise on previous years,” he said.
“We can’t take any credit for that, it's an Olympic year, that happens traditionally in athletics that all the different codes, Little Aths, amateur aths and the professionals, get a big increase in their numbers.”
The 2024 Seymour Gift will get under way at 11am on Saturday, December 14, at Kings Park.