After a long break in competition , it was extremely welcome to have the East Region Surf Lifesaving Championships take place on Lowestoft Beach.
The events are designed to challenge the participants run, swim, and board skills over a variety of distances depending upon their age as these are the key skills required to be a competent beach lifesaver. If you are local to the school, you may have seen the ITV News report on the day.
Our youngest school participant representing Waveney Surf Lifesaving Club was Herbie Shaw-Clutten (Year 5) who won one gold and one silver medal. This was an extremely competitive age-group (Nippers) and Herbie showed great confidence in his first ever competition. It is worth mentioning that he remains in this age-group for the next few years, so was against much older competitors. Also, in this age-group was Ben Every (Year 8) who achieved three gold, and two silver medals, he has a love of the sport and showed great determination in his events, finishing a notable distance ahead of others in both the board and swim races. In the age-group above (Youth) was Esmae Shaw-Clutten (Year 9), who is relatively new to the sport, but showed off her magnificent board skills to win gold in the board race. All those hours spent surfing gave her an edge on the longer prone boards! She elected to race in this age group despite being eligible for the younger age-group so that she could do a wider variety of events. Charlie McKinnon (Year 10) won bronze medals in the first two events of the day (Board and Swim), before spraining his ankle and sadly having to retire from the rest of the competition, but there is no doubt he will be back stronger next year.
On the beach for a short period of time were both Sam and Josh Stephens (Year 13), who were unable to compete in their preferred events due to having to leave for work commitments. However, a mention should be given to them as they are superb members of the coaching team and give their time and experience to support the younger members of the Club.