{"id":903181,"date":"2026-09-24T01:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T01:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903181\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T01:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T01:52:17","slug":"afl-grand-final-sprint-willem-duursma-looks-to-give-west-coast-eagles-a-win-on-last-day-in-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903181\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL grand final sprint: Willem Duursma looks to give West Coast Eagles a win on last day in September"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-1ix6vwn-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Saturday\u2019s decider will be all about Fremantle, but West Coast are hoping they can register a small victory too when Willem Duursma lines up in the grand final sprint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1ix6vwn-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Duursma was on Thursday unveiled as one of eight runners in the traditional race, which will be held at half-time and started by Australian sprint legend Cathy Freeman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1ix6vwn-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">It\u2019s a rare sight for a No.1 draft pick to be taking part in the sprint, with Duursma looking to emulate Brett Deledio from 2005 in taking out the race. Like Duursma, Deledio competed in the race at the end of his debut campaign, and remains the sole top draft pick to win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1ix6vwn-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Duursma will also be looking to become the first-ever West Coast player to win in a field involving multiple rival clubs. Josh Rotham snared victory in 2021 at Optus Stadium, when the race was made up of competitors solely from the Eagles and Dockers amid COVID travel restrictions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1ix6vwn-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Gold Coast\u2019s Jed Walter will be looking to defend his crown from last year in the eight-man race, which also includes Hawthorn\u2019s All-Australian defender Jarman Impey, North Melbourne midfield star Luke Davies-Uniacke, and Port Adelaide gun defender Aliir Aliir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday\u2019s decider will be all about Fremantle, but West Coast are hoping they can register a small victory&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85,7067],"class_list":["post-903181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-west-coast-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}