Record breaking trend continues at Pool Rescue Championships

Record breaking trend continues at New Zealand Pool Rescue Championships while Orewa wins title

An impressive total of 29 pool records have been broken at the annual Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) Pool Rescue Championships, held this weekend in Auckland.

The records were broken across the junior, senior and masters divisions over the three-days of competition, showing how committed and fit the competitors are at all levels of the sport.

However, the winning club was Orewa Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC) who dominated the event and took the top spot with a total of 265 points across both the Paul Kent Trophy and Masters category. The club also broke a notable nine records across a variety of events.

Orewa SLSC coach, Zac Franich, said: “We’re blown away with how our athletes performed this weekend. It sounds cliché, but it really was a team effort, spearheaded by some incredible performances from our juniors.

“We had points across all age groups which is a credit to our development and puts us in a really good space moving forward,” he added.

Finishing the event in second after a close battle was Piha SLSC who ended the three-day carnival on 119 points, only nine points ahead of their closest rivals in third.

Rounding out the podium in third was Mount Maunganui Lifeguard Service with 110 points.

The New Zealand Black Fins team also joined in on the fun at the event, and showed their fellow competitors what is involved with a Simulated Emergency Response Competition (SERC) event. SERC tests the initiative, judgment, knowledge, and abilities of lifesavers who apply lifesaving skills in a simulated emergency situation unknown to them prior to the start.

The SERC event will be a part of their campaign at the Lifesaving World Championships (LWC) in Adelaide next month where they’ll aim to bring home their fourth straight World Championship title.

The Black Fins were also responsible for four of the 29 broken records this weekend, showing how their preparation is going ahead of the LWC with Steven Kent breaking two records, and Carina Doyle and Madison Kidd breaking one each.

Event Manager, Ross Merrett said the event had been a great success, highlighted by the positive vibe and record-breaking trend of the competitors.

“The buzz around the event has just been fantastic this year, and that may have been buoyed by the sheer number of records that were broken over the weekend. It was no easy feat so congratulations to all the athletes who broke a record, and in fact, all those that set personal-bests too because there was also a lot of those.

“It has also been great to see the current Black Fins team breaking records today too. It really shows that their training ahead of the [Lifesaving] World Championships is going to plan which we hope bodes well for their world title bid. We were honoured to have them here and can’t wait to see them in action in Adelaide,” he added.

The next major sport event on the SLSNZ calendar is the New Zealand Representative Challenge on the 28 January at Midway Beach in Gisborne.

Stay up to date with the latest news from SLSNZ on the Surf Life Saving New Zealand Facebook page.

Top five points - total
Orewa SLSC, 265
Piha SLSC, 119
Mount Maunganui Lifeguard Service, 110
Mairangi Bay SLSC, 84.5
Papamoa SLSC, 65

Ends

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