Looking at the film footage within minutes of crossing the finish line, 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 [at the line] who had won; it was really close,” he told the Weekly.
“On the replay I thought it was me, but in the end it didn’t go my way.”
After deliberating for several minutes, judges awarded the Gift 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 8.5 metres) on 12.273 seconds.
Williamstown’s Sam Jamieson, who won the event in 2008, ran off 4.75 metres and completed the podium line-up.
“I thought about appealing the decision, but there was only one piece of evidence so they weren’t ever going to change the result,” said Carty-Cowling.
It was the second time the 23-year-old had run in the Gift after making the semi-finals last year.
“I was pretty happy with the run, pretty confident that I could run well this year. I’d been training particularly hard in the lead-up to the race. I usually have three running sessions and three gym sessions a week.”
The second place is Carty-Cowling’s third this year, having achieved the same result in the Ballarat and Stonnington gifts.
“I’ve been running gift events for about five years,” he said. “I used to play footy for West Footscray and one year they didn’t have a team so I tried running. I think I make a better runner than a footballer.”
Carty-Cowling, who is at university studying primary school teaching, said he was unsure whether he would return to Stawell next year to try and go one better.
