Looking at the tape, West Footscray’s Augustine Carty Cowling thought he had won the main event at the Stawell Gift on Easter Monday.
“It was hard to tell [when we crossed the line] who had won, it was really close,” he told the Weekly.
“On the replay I thought it was me [who had won], but in the end it didn’t go my way.”
After deliberating for several minutes, judges awarded the win to Luke Versace, who ran off 10 metres, by the smallest of margins 0.005 of a second.
Versace recorded a time of 12.268 seconds ahead of Carty-Cowling (off 8.5m) on 12.273 seconds.
“I thought about appealing the decision, by there was only one piece of evidence so they weren’t ever going to change the result.”
This is the second time the 23-year-old has competed in the event. He made the semi-finals last year.
“I was pretty happy with the run. I was pretty confident that I could run well this year,” he said.
“I had been training particularly hard in the lead-up to the event.”
Williamstown’s Sam Jamieson, who won the event in 2008, rounded out the podium, running off 4.75m.
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