Tuesday, 22 September 2026

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (15:46): I want to pay tribute to Lee Troop, three-time Olympian and Geelong running legend, who was the creator, owner and organiser of the inaugural Geelong Running Festival that took place in Geelong this past weekend. It was great to see our fabulous Liberal candidate for South Barwon on the track, Libby Pettit, with her son Rupert in his first race – Libby herself being a former national-level 800-metre runner. Over 6000 runners competed in numerous events, culminating in the marathon. My grandson even competed in his first under-5s event, beating by a mile my husband, who was way behind him – but he later competed in the 6.5-kilometre race because he has to get ready for the Melbourne half-marathon in a couple of weeks time. All of Geelong came out in support of this fabulous event. The track was lined absolutely everywhere. The runners said they had never had such support – way better than the Melbourne Marathon. It was a huge success. Lee Troop and his team need to be congratulated and need to be supported in the future, which we of course will do. I thank him for his efforts and his inspiration to get this fabulous event off and running. We love Geelong and we love the inaugural Geelong Running Festival.