Late offer helped secure Games bid
A SPLIT-SECOND decision to award a $10,000 bonus to a Kenyan runner at the 2011 Gold Coast Marathon has been revealed as a key moment in the city’s journey to winning the Commonwealth Games.
Nicholas Manza Kamakya broke a 22-year-old race record at the event when he blitzed the course in 2:10:01 but fell one second short of snaring the $25,000 on offer for any runner who crossed the line in 2:10:00 or less.
With 19 African Games delegates at the event as part of a visit to assess the city’s GC2018 bid, then mayor and former champion athlete Ron Clarke pulled Gold Coast Marathon chairman Kerry Watson aside and delivered an ultimatum.
Speaking for the first time about the political pressure that engulfed the event, Mr Watson recalled: “Ron said to me ‘He should still get (the $25,000) and if you don’t give it to him, the African delegates could be insulted and it’ll lose us the Commonwealth Games’.
“He just dumped it straight on me as chairman. I remember saying to (bid team chairman) Mark Stockwell ‘Well, this is a nice number, Ron’s indicating do as you’re bloody told or we’ll lose the Commonwealth Games’.
“We didn’t have time for a committee meeting … it was one of those moments where you have five minutes to make a decision. I didn’t want to buckle to Ron but I said to Mark ‘I’ve got to find a face saver to keep the Africans happy’.”
And it was then Mr Watson made a call that reverberates seven years later.
“I said on stage ‘I’m pleased to give you $10,000 in recognition of being so close and the great spirit with which you approached the finish line’.
“The feedback we got was the Africans thought it showed the Gold Coast had a spirit of recognition and empathy with the efforts of a superb athlete like Nicholas.”
Four months later on the Caribbean island of St Kitts & Nevis, the Gold Coast won the right to host the Games in a two-horse race with Sri Lankan rival Hambantota. Needing more than half of the 71 delegate votes on offer, the support of the powerful African contingent proved crucial.
“We don’t know what might have happened,” Mr Watson said of his snap decision to hand the $10,000 to Kamakya, who was last month selected in Kenya’s Games team.
“It might have been acceptable (not to) but it showed in a tight situation that we could be trusted to think of the athlete and not just the commercial attitude.”
Reminded of the moment this week, Mr Stockwell said: “I do recall it and knowing me as an old athlete, I would have thought ‘Well, you didn’t make the time so you don’t get the full reward’ (laughs).
“But Ron Clarke was fan- tastic to work with … to have (a sporting legend) as mayor of the bid city was bloody fantastic.
“I remember early in the piece Ron asking what I wanted him to do (on the bid) and I said ‘I’ll do the work but when I roll out the red carpet, I want you on it’ and he always was.”