2024 NSW State Championships Results

The first weekend of State Champs was spent over at Freshwater beach where we had 3 consecutive days of competition for Lifesaving events. All up we have 12 members who have qualified for Aussies across youth, open and masters.

This season we have been very fortunate to have a strong youth cohort, with 5 competing in Champion Lifesaver at State. These members have spent countless hours training in the water as well as theory and rests training. For those not familiar with the event, Champion Lifesaver is referred to as the Decathlon of lifesaving, where the competitor covers a range of physical (swim, board, sprint, tube swim) events as well as theory test, CPR and DRSABC. Points are awarded for each part and all up the winner is that with the most points out of 120.

Well done to our U17 Patrol competition team made up of Emilie Morris, Capucine Dequidt, Dara Kehoe and Charlie Gordon, who did an amazing job at their first State champs and first time doing a Patrol Comp. The team finished 2nd and qualified for Aussies. The team have been spending lots of time not only training, but getting the additional awards required – all competitors need to hold their Bronze, First Aid and ARTC to be able to compete.

Huge congrats to Kyra Jenkins and Lachlan Van der Pluijm who are proving to be a perfect pairing for our Open First Aid team, securing bronze at State and locking in a spot for Aussies in April.

Many thanks to Jodie Frazer, Jo Cooper, Joe Mass and Keith Abraham for officiating over the 3 days to ensure NS was able to compete. Thanks also to Dave Guthrie for ensuring our competitors were given the green light to compete and ensure patrols were covered.

For Lifesaving we finished 6th overall on state with club points.

Masters competed over the course of two days with some very challenging conditions. All up we had a team of 7 compete in beach & water events, however this season our strong male Masters cohort, Dads Army had disbanded for the season with only Tim Platt and Simon Herfort pulling on the Club Cap for State this season. Simon did amazing to in the 2km run with a very competitive cohort and extremely soft sand to finish up 8th and backed up with sprints in 5th place. Tim Platt secured silver in the 1km run and had some great results in the water events too.

The North Steyne Angels our fabulous Masters women had phenomenal performances and the local knowledge of rips and the surf did at times come in handy as well as some words of wisdom from Council lifeguard Nick. Caroline remains undefeated for another year in the 1km run claiming a gold, despite the odd length of the 1km run this year!

Standout performances from the teams, in particular Lou Lou for really overcoming her discomfort on the board and just doing so incredible well on the boat for the team events and Rebecca, new comer to the sport picking up individual and team medals too. Deb’s decision to drop to part time work this year had benefits with her picking up an individual gold in the tube swim. Erin and Sarah came back for round 2 and claimed bronze in the Board Rescue.

Well done also to Charlie Walker for representing North Steyne in the beach events with a bronze in 2km run for the Open Championships. The finish line right along the balcony to the bar at North Steyne resulted in a roaring cheer squad for Charlie’s fabulous performance.

Two boat crews, Black Swans and Golds competed in the Masters. This is the first year the crews have been rowing all together and State provided a great opportunity for them to have some competition time. It was some very tricky conditions and the sweep did amazing to ensure all races were finished with all the crews still in tact!

Finally a special thank you to all those who have assisted over the State Championships, whether it was on BBQ duty, working in the bar, covering on patrol for competitors, being support crew at events, or even sending words of support to the team. I cannot emphasis enough that this is all a club wide effort and without you all we would not be able to compete.