ANGLESEA TOP PERFORMERS AT AUSSIES

Anglesea SLSC members were standouts at the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships held last week on the Gold Coast. Competitors faced challenging surf conditions including last minute venue changes for the water events. Surfboats were transferred from Kurrawa to Nth Kirra, and R&R moved to Kirra, which created some inconvenience. However, all adapted well with our teams performing well in all sections.

Firstly, and clearly a need for celebration – Very special accolades to our R&R section with an unprecedented 3 Gold Medals being won – open women, open mixed 5 person and open mixed 6 person - outstanding effort! This is a fantastic team result and particular congratulations to super coach Christine Cardwell.

The beach team also performed extremely well at the Kurrawa ‘sandpit’. Strong performances came from all of our competitors. Special mention must be made of some of our younger members, particularly those who stepped up into the open section in the beach flags. Pierre Lee made the Semi-final while Saxon Beale represented Anglesea in the Open Final. Again a terrific effort to perform against Australia’s best in the competition. Some outstanding results as follows:

Finalists.

· Mens U17 Beach Relay (Cooper Stanley, Tom Schaefer, Patrick Kenny, Sam Johnson) – 4th

· Open Mixed Beach Relay (Saxon Beale, Marli Wilkinson, Kate Walker, Patrick Kenny) – 5th

· Saxon Beale : Opens Mens Beach Flags – 8th

Semi-Finalists

· Patrick Kenny – U17 Mens Beach Sprint

· Patrick Kenny – U17 Mens Beach Flags

· Open Womens Beach Relay (Hanna Wilkinson, Kate Walker, Stephanie Larkin, Marli Wilkinson)

· Pierre Lee – Open Mens Beach Flags

Outstanding results were achieved by our boat section.

The surf conditions were particularly difficult with large surf and an unforgiving break on the back bar. This created havoc with many top crews facing early exit from the competition and many boat roll-overs.

The Open Women led the field in their two preliminary finals races but received a hammering in the big one – the Open Final – and missed out on a podium finish BUT came 6th which is just a huge effort! Well done team.

The U19 Men made it to the Semi’s as did our Reserve Men were unlucky after winning two of their races, but ran into a few ‘bone crunchers’ in their Semi just failing to qualify for the Final. Well done to those crews too.

Scott Tannahill’s coaching and sweeping on the day must be commended.

A very pleasing part of the competition team’s performance was the contribution from our youngest team members in the junior competition, with Jas Hume in the 2km run, ironman and 2x1 km relay with Elle Morgan while Chloe Fitzgerald came 7th in the 2km swim. The girls also combined well making the semi-final of the U13/14 board relay and together with Emily Thomas, combined again to make the semi-final of the U13/14 surf teams. It was encouraging to see the girls perform so well which bodes well for the club’s future in competition at the Aussies.

Finally, at the other end of the age range were our Masters, Sam Hume, Ivor Morgan and Ingilby Dickson. Sam finished with Silver in the 2km run, 7th in the 2km swim, 11th in the surf race and with Ivor, 5th in board rescue, while Ingilby managed 6th in the 2km swim and 8th in the surf race.

Overall, it was a terrific effort by our team, with support from coaches and support staff. Mention must also be made of the contribution from Scott Hastie who provided Anglesea’s IRB support during the week. Given the hazardous conditions, his role was particularly important given the dangerous surf.

Our campaign was capped off with a team dinner which enabled all of our 47 competition members to get together for a great social event to celebrate Anglesea’s exceptional Aussies performance.