The year 11 student just pipped last year’s winner in Hobart runner Jared Gilroy in his carnival debut in a virtual photo finish in a race worthy of a final.

Chilvers ran off a handicap mark of 12m, with Gilroy off 9m and third place going to former Stawell Gift winner Andrew Robinson who was the backmarker off 6m.

Robinson’s record now stands at two seconds and two thirds in the Launceston Gift but is yet to grab a victory.

The women’s 100m gift title went to Brooke Jones who took out the sprint double with a victory in the 200m sprint also.

The St Brendan Shaw’s College student continued her good NSATIS record-breaking form from this year to cross the line in front of experienced Southern runner Michelle Cockrell (nee Davis) second and Emma Penney third.

Jones ran off 6m with Cockrell of 7.25m and Penney off 7.5m.

The open 600m handicap went to Beechford runner Getasew Ferguson who beat home Northdown runner Alec Thomas with Launceston’s Jordan Tyler third.

Tyler turned the tables by taking out the open 1600m handicap.

The David Rae coached, middle-distance runner, was the pacemaker in this year’s Launceston Ten and ran from a mark of 110m to just catch the frontmarker in Gerard Lowry off 285m in the last 100m with backmarker Ferguson third off 90m.

The open masters handicap went to Mark Canning off 30m, from the veteran Tim Potter off 15m and Wenonah Sharman off 50m.

‘‘It was a good day of racing – in terms of quantity it would have been nice to have had more entries because we had heats and then finals with no semis,’’ carnival organiser Craig Boon said.

‘‘But in terms of quality I thought that was really good and the men’s gift was a good close finish with quality competitors involved.

‘‘We had about 40 Little Athletics athletes out there so their events were well contested.’’