Many other gifts are held around Victoria in country and metro locations including Ballarat, Bendigo, Wangaratta, Maryborough, Keilor, Yarrawonga, Ringwood, Rye and Olympic Park.
Generally, the greater the sum of the prize money for a race, the less handicap is available, limiting the class of runners that can win.
Since the late 1980s athletics and the Olympic Games have been 'open', meaning that the so-called amateurs and professionals can all compete together for prize money without being penalised or discriminated against.
Professional running in Australia began in the gold-mining days and boomed in areas where miners were prospecting and digging for gold.
Big prize money and heavy betting attracted talented athletes as well as a range of shady characters.
The Victorian Athletic League was formed on 15 April 1895 when RV Lewis of Benalla was elected president and Hastings Bell of Stawell was appointed secretary.
Originally the League was administered from Stawell and formulated rules and regulations for country towns that conducted sports carnivals.
In 1902 a regular office was established in Melbourne and the Victorian Athletic League began to promote the sport of professional running.
The League moved into conducting special events such as the famous Dandy Dollar Dash at VFL/AFL football matches, the Moomba Mile run down Bourke Street in the Melbourne CBD, 400 metres series' during international cricket matches at the MCG and sprint events during horse races at Moonee Valley.
The League began to form a strong alliance with Athletics Victoria through formal affiliation, sharing resources and establishing a dual-registration process.
(Include VAL, SAAL, QAL, NSWAL, TAL) - Cathy Freeman - Linford Christie - Robert De Castella - Josh Ross - Jana Rawlinson - Tamsyn Lewis - Nova Peris-Kneebone - Melinda Gainsford-Taylor - Madeleine Pape (Australian Olympian) - Bola Lawal (Nigerian Olympian) - George McNeill (Scotland) - J.L.
Past Winners 2000-2020 (Men's) 2000 R Devalle 2001 M Moresi 2002 C Touhy 2003 C Foley 2004 C Dunbar 2005 G Brown 2006 D Burgess 2007 M Callard 2008 P O'Dwyer 2009 R Medford 2010 Douglas Greenough 2011 Craig Rollinson 2012 Cam Dunbar 2013 Bros Kelly 2014 Matt Carter 2015 Paul Tancredi 2016 Noddy Angelakos 2017 Nathan Riali 2018 Maddie Coates 2019 Aaron Leferink 2020 Matt Burleigh Past Winners 2000-2020 (Women's) 2000 A Fearnley 2001 J Chehadei 2002 K Moore 2003 A Deery 2004 A Deary 2004 A Deery 2006 C White 2007 K Steward 2008 M Dean 2009 A Crook 2010 Katie Moore 2011 Alice Platten 2012 Eleni Gilden 2013 Stephanie Mollica 2014 Jessica Payne 2015 Taylah Perry 2016 Celia Cosgriff 2017 Ebony Lane 2018 Holly Dobbyn 2019 Kysha Praciak 2020 Bree Masters Hosted by the Ringwood Professional Athletic club this event is held usually in January.
Past Winners 2000 P Walsh 2001 M Callard 2002 E Everton 2003 J Hilditch (Scotland) 2004 J Lewis 2005 D Arthur 2006 J Boulton 2007 A Flanagan 2008 C Foley 2009 R Ballard 2010 G Stephens 2011 T Ireland 2012 C Dunbar 2013 R Parkinson 2014 M Hargreaves 2015 P Tancredi 2016 P Tancredi 2017 H Kerr 2018 H Wyllie 2019 J Bailey 2020 J Bailey The Ballarat Gift as a strong history dating back to 1949.
Past Winners (since it was resurrected in 1989) The Bendigo Opal is held around March every year and coincides with the International Cycling Madison.
Past Winners 2003 Duncan Tippins 2004 Mark Howard 2005 Nathan Dixon 2006 Tommy Neim 2007 Nick Magree 2008 Glenn Stephens The Stawell Gift is considered the country's and quite possibly world's most prestigious professional footrace.