Community & Business
3 March, 2022
Roos named face of the great race
A MAN who has been involved with the Great Wheelbarrow Race since its inception has been named the Face of the Race for 2022.
Terry Roos was involved with the race since the first event in 2004 and was a member of the Great Wheelbarrow Race committee until 2020, helping to arrange logistics, writing and distributing the team rules briefings, taking on the roles of chief marshal and the individual team marshal courtesy person for many years.
“What a great honour to be named as the Face of the Race and especially considering the people who have been chosen before,” Terry said.
The race has many meanings for Terry – an event that benefits smaller towns and communities west of Mareeba; an event that raises millions of dollars for different charities over the more than a decade; and an event that creates bonds between people, highlights the value of teamwork, and delivers lessons about perseverance and determination.
“It has been wonderful to be involved in such an important event for the Mareeba Shire and see how it has grown over the years and what it has achieved,” Terry said.
As someone who has participated in the race five times as part of a team, Terry knows full well the benefits it can have.
“This race has raised millions of charity dollars over time but the real value lies in the hidden aspects of character and team-building and encouraging the different parts of society to use this event for that purpose,” he said.
“The essence of making each person part of a team is captured each day and there’s no better way to drive it home as each day changes. lt makes each person see that we are all different and lays bare the differences that are packed into an unforgotten memory.
“This then is the embedded memory in each one of us as an individual!”
Terry says one of his fondest memories of the race and one that personifies this was of a young woman who decided to run the race for the first time but after the first day she had asked him to take her back to Cairns.
“I didn’t have the time to be honest and so she had to keep going. As day two of the race went by, she started doing short runs and by the end of the day, she was doing a full run,” he said.
“On day three, she thanked me for not taking her back to Cairns and for encouraging her to keep going.” Terry met the woman a few years later when she was doing her nursing degree by correspondence.
She had the photograph of her in the wheelbarrow race team beside her computer. “She wanted to show me the photo next to her computer and said: ‘It reminds me when I get stuck in study – just keep going and you will get there’,” Terry recalled.
Terry said he wanted to thank former Mareeba Mayor Mick Borzi for the legacy he had left for the shire.
“This event was the brainchild of the then Mayor Mick Borzi who really wanted to inject cash and visitors into those small towns like Almaden, Dimbulah and Mutchilba and that’s what the race has done,” he said.
“So thanks to Mick in the first instance but also to all those people who, over the years, have made this event what it is.”
Terry is urging locals to enter the race this year, which will be held from 20-22 May, to ensure it keeps being the successful event that it has been for the past 17 years.
ENTER THE 2022 RACE
• Interested racers can nominate for a range of different categories from social to competitive in teams, trios, duos or solos.
• Nominations are now open so head to www.greatwheelbarrowrace.com to register your team, trio, duo or solo for this year’s Mareeba to Chillagoe race. Nominations close 19 April.
