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Barrie Kernaghan is Western Australia's Mr Athletics
- Tim Tucak
- Sep 14
- 4 min read
The Sunday Times, August 24, 2025
Quarter By Quarter - Glen Quartermain - Veteran Sports Writer.
Mr Athletics
Barrie Kernaghan is Western Australia's Mr Athletics.
The 85-year-old decorated coach, administrator and athlete retired from veteran's competition only this year due to a heart condition and imbalance caused by treatment for skin cancer on an ear.
"The harder I trained the worse I got," Kernaghan said.
"I had an imbalance caused by surgery when I had a melanoma removed and my left (heart) ventricle can no longer pump fast enough to supply me the oxygen I need to sprint"
Up until April, Kernaghan had been competing at Athletics West's Friday night competition. He'd been
a regular fixture since 2014 when he took up sprinting again after a 45-year hiatus.
A former champion professional runner, Kernaghan began his sporting life as a beach sprinter before
progressing to grass and won every State title from 60 yards to a mile and just about every gift from Dumbleyung to Lake Grace, to Mullewa after moving to Katanning with the Commonwealth Bank.
Running bare foot in 1969, at age 29, he competed at the Australian Professional Foot Running
Championships in Toowoomba, Queensland.
And he became Australia's oldest gift winner, at 75 and a grandfather of four, when he took out a 120m
final in Melville in 2015 after starting from a 39.5m handicap against much younger rivals.
Kernaghan told The West Australian at the time: "I can hear them all coming at me from behind me
and I'm going like mad. As I say with pro running, give a blind man with one leg enough start and he'll win it, but I run faster than any of them think a 74-year-old can run. Just don't tell them that."
He resumed sprinting after dedicating his life to coaching and administration, and won seven world
Masters titles, dozens of national Masters gold medals and an all up an incredible 106 State titles.
A life member at Karrinyup and North Beach athletics clubs, as well as Athletics West, he was WA Athletics Association president and City To Surf fun run chief timekeeper. He's been chairman of Karrinyup Little Athletics and senior clubs, the senior athletics association, state coaching and education
officer for LA, treasurer of the Perry Lakes Rekortan track fund raising committee and inaugural chairman of the WA Institute of Technology, now Curtin, Regional Athletic Centre.
Along the way, Kernaghan instigated weekly competition for blind and disabled athletes and acted as
coach and guide to totally blind runner, Murray Buck.
"Murray was a fast sprinter who lost his sight in a skateboard accident while holidaying in England. He was running too fast for his guide runner to keep up so I asked senior athletics if they would let me be his guide runner and they agreed," he said.
In 2000, he was selected to carry the Olympic torch through Trigg and was awarded the Queen's Australian Sports Medal the same year for his contribution to the sport over 40 years.
Just to wedge in a couple more interests in a busy life, Kernaghan has also been an avid stamp collector, magician and orchid grower.
But he says his proudest achievements were not as an athlete, but as a coach and administrator, his
efforts earning him the nickname Mr Athletics.
When he returned to Perth after 11 years of country service with the bank, he wasn't allowed to compete
against amateurs at Perry Lakes due to his pro status.
So he took up coaching at Karrinyup Little Athletics and had such success it led to involvement at
every tier of athletics in the state.
"There are 19 kids who still hold state records. My daughter (Sharon) still holds the 800m State 14
years record, running in bare feet as school athletes were not allowed spikes or blocks. She's now 58," he said.
Kernaghan believes a four-week grade one coaching course he introduced in the late 1970s was a
game changer.
"Treat kids like children, but use methods to improve them," he said.
"The long jump, for example, is badly named because you don't want to jump long. You want to
jump high.
"These long jump coaches teach the kids to jump parallel to the ground. Of course, they hit the
ground early, but if they could get up, they'd get in an extra metre. So it's about the propulsion and same
with javelin. You've got to teach them the thrust
"In sprinting, coaches still to this day get all the one age groups run from the same line. So the same kid
wins every time and the rest just run along behind.
"When kids play at home and they want their younger siblings to join, they adapt rules like over the
fence is six and out and you have to get them out, say, three times in French cricket
"So why not do the same in sprinting? Give the slower ones a start and keep handicapping the good ones back so everyone has a chance to win. But they'll have to give 100 per cent to do so, instead of
the club champion training at 96 per cent"
So the question is, what will Barrie Kernaghan do now if he can't sprint?
"I can still jog," he said
Barrie Kernaghan is a Swanny Veterans Group member. He joined Swanbourne Nedlands SLSC in October 1958 and gained his Bronze Medallion, WA 507, on 13 December 1958. Other members of that Bronze Medallion group were Ed Jaggard, Robert Sibon, Peter Brown, Ian Everette and Ian Jones. (Ed and Peter are also Swanny Veterans Group members).
Barrie was Beach Sprint Club Champion in 1960 and 1961 and Points Races Running Points Champion in 1959, 1960 and 1961.
Steve Butler, The West Australian, Fri, 23 January 2015
Local West Australian runner and World masters champion athlete Barrie Kernaghan won gold (AG 75) in the 100 metres in 2016.
We will share the video (see below) of the 100 metre sprint shortly because you have to see the incredible kick towards the finish line.
Video: Barrie Kernaghan from Australia coming from way behind to win the Gold medal in the World Masters Men's 75 years 100 metres in 2016.