He’d just won the men’s mineral water drinking world championship, and Michael McLaughlan was happy but surprised. He hadn’t counted on being the fastest, skolling one litre in 9.04 seconds and beating eight other men to win one of the most popular events at Glenlyon Sports Day that is held every New Year’s Day.
But McLaughlan’s wife, Rebecca Ewer, was confident her husband would blitz the field. “Every morning he gets out of bed and drinks a litre of water just like he did there,” she said. “Blink and you’ll miss it.
” McLaughlan, of Glenroy in Melbourne, won a trophy and $150, but it wasn’t the point. A newspaper clipping about the Glenlyon Sports Day from 1918. Credit: The Daylesford Advocate, Yandoit, Glenlyon and Eganstown Chronicle Ewer said the couple and children Ruby, 5, and Pearl, 3, along with baby Angus, had a wonderful time at the old-fashioned festival.
The low-key but much loved Sports Day has run for more than 100 years in Glenlyon, a hamlet near Daylesford, 100 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. There were no flashy rides, sideshows or junk food stalls, just barbecued sausages and home-made cakes sold to raise money for St Michael’s school, woodchopping and gumboot throwing competitions and kids’ foot races. The sun shone on the bush setting, Glenlyon Recreation Reserve near Wombat State Forest, and visitors picnicked in the shade of gentle oak trees.
The Glenlyon Cup horse race didn’t run this year due to problems obtaining insura.