Phil Raschker (left) and Marge met up at the Sydney World Masters Games in 2009.

Chalk up another title for Marge Allison and Emu Oil. Australia has a masters nationals, but when it comes to bragging rights the top individual award is The Landy Trophy. Nobody votes on this award. You win it on the track. And this isn’t for each age group — it’s for the top racer among all age groups and sexes. On February 15, Marge became the second woman in the event’s history to win the Landy. Everyone runs a 200 and a 1,000 in the event. Then the top runners, based on age-graded percentages, advance to a handicap 400-meter final. A handicap race means the youngest masters run the longest. The oldest, such as 65-year-old Marge, run a shorter distance based on the WMA Age-Graded Tables. Don’t know if they used the 2006 or 2010 tables, but Marge is this year’s winner. Last October, Carmel Papworth-Barnum described how Marge swears by Emu Oil. “She swallows a teaspoon a day and rubs some into her knee,” Carmel wrote at Women Running Together, her wonderful Web site.

Here’s a report on the 2010 Landy Trophy races:

Queensland invasion steals Landy

FOR the fourth time in the past five years a Queenslander has taken Australian masters athletics’ most prestigious event.

This time it was Marge Allison, a multiple world champion and world record-holder, who snapped up The Landy Trophy at Doncaster’s Rieschiecks Reserve last Monday night.

Allison became the event’s second interstate winner following the success of Hugh Coogan, who won it in 2006, 07, 08.

And, while Coogan still holds the three fastest times recorded in Landy history, Allison’s 45.34sec for the age-graded 400m is the next best in the event’s 11-year history.

Allison also became just the second woman to win The Landy, following the success of Jan Morrey in the first running of the event in 2000.

The Landy Trophy is a heats-and-final event run from marks calculated under the Age-Graded Percentage Scale, which makes allowance for age and gender.

All competitors run a 200m heat and a 1000m heat with points awarded for finishing positions.

Allison led throughout to score from East Burwood athlete Ron Arthur (47.26sec), who had previously finished second in the 2005 final.

Canberra visitor John Lamb (47.58sec) finished third.

Meanwhile, 80-year-old veteran Leo Coffey (45.97sec) led throughout to take the Consolation after missing qualifying for the trophy final by just one point.

Coffey has never run in a final but has now won the Consolation twice.

The Doncaster pair, of Tony Keeghan (40m) and Kevin Bates (40m), fought-out the finish of the Young Guns final with backmarker Danny Hecker coming from 13m for a fast-finishing third.

The inter-venue trophy, The Landy Shield, was won by East Burwood (62 points) from Doncaster (49) and the previous holders, Collingwood (45).

East Burwood’s principal contributors were Ron Arthur, Leo Coffey and Wayne James.

The other feature event on the program, the Doncaster Dash – for members of Doncaster Little Athletics – was won, for the second successive year, by scratchmarker Wesley Spargo, who got up in the last couple of strides to beat Samantha Galagher (11m) and Jimmie Gladman (2m).

Masters athletics, for over 30s, is held at the Doncaster track every Monday night (7.30pm start). Further info from Richard Trembath (0409 369 944) or Bryan Bottomley (0418 353 685).