Alexia Loizou edges ‘best friend’ in Stawell Gift final for the ages
A pair of inseparable nursing students delivered one of the greatest women’s Stawell Gift finals in history, with Alexia Loizou edging her best friend by the slimmest of margins.
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Inseparable best friends were separated by just .08sec in the women’s final of the Stawell Gift, won by nursing student Alexia Loizou.
Loizou, who ran off 5.75m, just edged out her training partner Sophia Fighera (5m) in a blanket finish which was a bonanza for Matt Carter’s Melbourne-based training squad.
The 21-year-old from Frankston who arrived in Stawell a “poor nursing student” departs with a cheque for $40,000 after claiming the victory in 13.579sec, just ahead of Fighera’s 13.659.
“We are best friends, we do everything together, we’re inseparable pretty much,” Loizou said.
2019 Strickland Family Women’s Gift Champion Alexia Loizou #stawellgift pic.twitter.com/P7MEg2pbQo
— #StawellGift (@Stawell_Gift) April 22, 2019
“Our birthdays are six days apart, we have really close PBs, we went 1-2 in the state 400m a couple of months ago so we’re pretty much joined at the hip which is really nice.”
She said there was no friction between the pair in the lead-up to the final where they were at the top of betting markets.
“We are rivals on the track, but never like that off track,” Loizou said. “We’re always super close and never let any competition affect our friendship which is so special.”
Loizou admitted she was in shock at winning Australia’s richest sprint race given she’d initially fought against even taking up the sport.
“I have been doing it for a while, since I was probably about 10,” she said.
“Mum tried to get me into the sport when I was really young but I was so stubborn and just not interested, I’d run in my Blundstones and Driza-Bone jacket, I just didn’t want a bar of it.
“But then I came back a few years later and thought this is kind of cool, I think I could do this.”
After seeing her training partner Matthew Rizzo win the men’s race in 2017, Loizou started to think about doing something special at Stawell.
“It was the year Rizzo ran, my teammate, I saw him and thought ‘Oh my God’ that’s incredible, these athletes must be just beyond my imagination,” she said.
“To be here where I am, where I thought I could never be a couple of years ago … it makes you really believe in yourself and it shows you can do amazing things if you put your mind to it.”
Loizou will focus more on the track next season over her preferred distance of 400m but her first thoughts after winning was paying off her car loan.
“I have a car loan, it sounds so boring but I definitely want to pay that off and then move onto more exciting things I guess,” she said.
“I have a lot of dreams, aspiring to be a nurse and this will really help with that.”
There was drama in the women’s semi-finals when Olympic hurdler Lauren Wells false-started and was penalised a metre. She then flew home to run second by a whisker, missing a spot in the final.
Wells then entered the Jack Donaldson 200m race where she took on the men and duly saluted from the outside mark.
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