Visitors to the Powercor Stawell Gift this weekend will get the chance to see the current Australian number 1 ranked women’s sprinter compete on the grass on Easter Monday. <\/p>\n
Hana Basic will join the Furphy Chris Perry Memorial Backmarkers Invitation Handicap 120m, a traditionally hotly contested race made up of the best Backmarkers of the weekend. The race takes place between the finals of the Change Our Game Women\u2019s Gift and the Powercor Stawell Gift on Monday April 5.<\/p>\n
Hana will not be entering the Change Our Game Women\u2019s Gift this year due to the timing with the Australian Track and Field Championships so soon after Easter. \u201cThere just isn\u2019t enough recovery time between my last race and the Nationals. But the days did align for me to run in the 120m Backmarkers Invitational, so it\u2019s pretty special to be asked to join the top runners.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hana first competed at Stawell 10 years ago and has been a finalist in the Change Our Game Women\u2019s Gift 120m twice, including a 2nd <\/sup>place result in 2014, but she has never won at Stawell.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know who else will be in the Backmarkers Invitation but they had better be ready,\u201d said Hana this afternoon. \u201cI\u2019m going to give it my best. It would be huge to win at Stawell and make history in this race by being the first female to take the win.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Powercor Stawell Gift holds special meaning to so many people, including myself, due to its long, rich history – I really do think of it as the pinnacle of racing in Australia! It is a fantastic event to end the domestic season, where athletes have the opportunity to showcase the work and determination they have put in over the past 12 months. Winning the Gift would be incredible – I’d love to get my name in the history books alongside some great athletes, past and present.\u201d<\/p>\n Hana is part of Melbourne Athletic Development (MAD) and she is looking forward to supporting her coach John Nicolosi and teammates including Kendra Hubbard, Michael Romanin, Spencer Browne and Massimo Acquaro over the Easter Weekend. \u201cWe’re a very tight squad.\u201d<\/p>\n Her goal is to run 11.15 (\u201cor quicker, ideally\u201d) and qualify for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the 100m and 4 x 100m. <\/p>\n \u201cI’d love to make some more senior international teams over the next few years. Competing at the World Indoor Champs in Serbia next year would be huge! And, of course, I hope to win the Stawell Gift one year.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Visitors to the Powercor Stawell Gift this weekend will get the chance to see the current Australian number 1 ranked women’s sprinter compete on the grass on Easter Monday. Hana Basic will join the Furphy Chris Perry Memorial Backmarkers Invitation Handicap 120m, a traditionally hotly contested race made up of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-release","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n