Stewart McSweyn still smiling as Troy Atkins wins in mile epic at the Burnie Carnival

King Island's favourite son again took on the mile for the second time in three days, this time finishing second on New Year's Eve in the Burnie Carnival's Open Tasmanian Mile at West Park.

It was a close second, just failing to get winner Troy Aitkens after a powerful final lap.

Atkins, [255m], finished in 4:00.50, while McSweyn finished in 4:00.86 off scratch.

It came after McSweyn took out the Tasmanian Mile Championship in an Australian all-comers record of 3:50.61 on Tuesday at Penguin, but time wasn't really his focus this time around, just executing a good race.

"I'm pretty happy with it tonight,'' he said.

"Obviously the wind picked up a little bit and I love racing here and the ground is in amazing condition and I was happy I was able to put in a really good time.

"I do love it here as there is no better roar than that last lap."

McSweyn admitted that Penguin "took a little bit out of him", but two big races in such a short period of time would be good preparation for the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

"Troy was awesome and he held a really good mark,'' he said.

"Whatever race you are off scratch it is going to be hard, but I just focused on picking off runner by runner and then when I got to the last lap I just gave it everything."

Atkins, from Devonport, collected his second mile win of the series after his victory at Rosebery, in what was the biggest moment of his pro-running career.

"It is always very tough here in Burnie, but I'm very pleased,'' he said.

"I thought he was going to catch me on the straight and I was tiring, but it was great [to win it].

"I was hurting halfway around that last lap, but I dug in."

McSweyn also confirmed he would make a call about two months out from the Games of which two of the 1500m, 5000m and 10,000m he would race in Tokyo.

Aaron Harvey rounded out the podium for the Tasmanian Open Mile.

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