FRIENDS DENY BREE
STAWELL GIFT RESULTS:
BREE Masters’ bid for an Australian beach sprintStawell Gift double has been undone by a pair of Melbourne runners inseparable off the track.
Alexia Loizou yesterday held off best friend Sophia Fighera to claim the women’s Gift in a time of 13.58 seconds, the 21-year-old a mere 0.08 ahead of Fighera.
Kurrawa lifesaver and recent Australian beach sprint champion Masters was third in 13.88.
Yet there was no doubt Masters was undone by a Victorian pair eager to claim friendly bragging rights.
The duo were born just six days apart, they boast identical 100m PBs of 12.06 and earlier this year finished first and second in the 400m at the Victorian titles, with Fighera taking the honours.
“We are rivals on the track but it’s never like that off track,” said Loizou, who had a handicap of 5.75m.
“It’s always super close and we never let any competition affect our friendship which is so special.”
The $40,000 first prize will come in very handy for the nursing student.
“I have a lot of dreams, I’m aspiring to be a nurse and this will really help with that,” she said.
“I want to pay off my loan, I have a car loan, it sounds so
boring but definitely the car loan and then on to more exciting things I guess.”
Loizou also has big dreams in athletics, although that certainly wasn’t the case when she was first pushed into the sport by her mother as a 10-year-old.
“I was so stubborn and just not interested,” she said.
“But then I came back a
few years later and thought this is kind of cool, I think I could do this.”
Reformed party-boy Dhruv Rodrigues Chico won the men’s Stawell Gift.
The 20-year-old only switched his attention to athletics midway through 2018 after falling out of love with football.
The mechanic’s winning time of 12.11 seconds off a 7m mark was good enough to relegate Sydneysider Leonard King (12.24) and Melbourne’s Jason Bailey (12.25) to the minor placings.
■ SALLY Pearson has stepped up her preparations for next month’s World Relays with a convincing 100m victory at a meet in Japan.
Pearson clocked 11.52 seconds, well clear of secondplaced Japanese runner Anna Doi at the Yoshioka Memorial meet in Izumo.
Olympic champion Pearson, 32, made her return to the 100m hurdles at the recent Australian championships in Sydney after a long lay-off due to an achilles tendon injury.