The New Zealand Surf Life Saving Championships took place over the weekend of 22nd to 24th March this year and although this is a club event, Lindisfarne was well represented in the Ocean Beach Kiwi and Westshore clubs. This enormous and very prestigious event was held this year at Mt. Maunganui and clubs travelled from all over the country to compete

For many of the boys, it was the first time they had competed at Nationals and the experience will set them up for future competition by giving them an opportunity to see the top athletes in this field. The level of competition was extremely high but our boys managed to achieve five gold medals.

The first of these went to Jonty and Lars who were in a team which won U19 Surf Canoe Long Course. Reece Akuhata also took out gold in the U19 Beach Flags event which was particularly creditable as he had only recently recovered from an injury which had hampered his training. Our best event was undoubtedly the Beach Relay in which Reece featured in winning teams in both the Open and U19 events and juniors Grayson, Llewellyn and Corban were in the team which took out the U16 gold.

To add to the boys’ medal tally, Emma Akeripa who has recently joined the staff as Strength and Conditioning coach featured in numerous events in the Masters Championships which took place before the main competition. Emma took home five medals including a silver and a gold.

Article added: Monday 11 November 2019