LIFESAVING teams from six countries took to the surf outside the red and yellow flags at Bondi Beach yesterday for the International and Interstate Centenary Challenge.The four-day event gives athletes a chance to practice before the World Lifesaving Championships in Germany next year. “Every one of the athletes competing here today are lifesavers back home and only the lifeguards from the US get paid. The rest are volunteers,” the general manager of surf sports for Surf Life Saving Australia, Grant Baldock, said.
Teams from Great Britain, South Africa, the US, New Zealand and Japan travelled to compete in the event, but with a home-surf advantage the Australians were favorite to win.
Ahead of the under-23 female surf race, competitors performed a few quick squats and tricep stretches before lowering their goggles to get down to business.
“Can we all see the two green flags, up down there? I’m speaking Australian,” race starter Peter Davis said, alerting competitors to the finish line before squeezing the trigger.
And they were off, bronzed legs hurdling the waves at first, then kicking hard to swim the 400-metre arch around 13 buoys in the sea.
“These are fairly easy conditions on a beach that’s famous for being enormous,” he said. “It’s a glorified chop.”
Other events on the bill include ski relays, ironman races and rescues by ski, board and tube - where lifesavers drag a swimmer back to land using a floating device.
Megan Nay, a 19-year-old lifesaver from Kurrawa, on the Gold Coast, won the women’s race. She had been competing in surf lifesaving for six years, after switching from pool swimming.
“It’s more like a washing machine out there,” she said. “It’s a bit more interesting than following the black line, that’s for sure.”
This year marks 100 years of surf lifesaving in Australia. The Surf Bathing Association of NSW was formed in October 1907, after Sydney councils lifted their bans on daylight swimming