SLSC Champs
Held over the weekend of the 20th and 21st of February, this year’s Canterbury Champs gave St Clair SLSC athletes heading to nationals this year an opportunity for competitive racing.
With a team of 30 travelling up to New Brighton for the event results of the highest level were expected from the team. The event mixes both IRB and Sand into a full weekend of racing.
Racing commenced on Saturday with the IRB events. St Clair had four crews entered this year with the Under 21 crew of Niam Chronican and James Rolfe, Senior crews of Jake Smith and Chris Guild and Mark Freeman and Michael Crombie and women’s crew of Carla and Steph Laughton.
The Under 21 crew of Niam and James were competing in their first IRB event so learning the racing environment was paramount for them first up. Three solid races with minimal mistakes marked a success weekend for this newly formed crew.
The senior white crew of Jake and Chris performed well all weekend and save for a bit of bad luck would have topped the dais in the Assembly rescue. Their best result for the weekend was a third in the Tube Rescue.
The senior black crew of Mark and Michael raced well all weekend without achieving any notable finishes from their four races.
The women’s crew of Carla and Steph swept all before them going on to win each race in their division (Tube Rescue, Mass Rescue, Assembly Rescue and Single Rescue)
Overall in the IRB section St Clair finished third.
After the conclusion of the IRB events, the attention moved to the craft arena where St Clair had a full complement of competitors.
Unfortunately St Clair was not able to achieve consistent results in the individual events with the highlight of the morning being the win for Carla Laughton in the Open Women’s Ski Race. Sophie Robb also placed third in the Open Women’s Board Race.
The highlight’s of the afternoon came in the Run Swim Run events and the beach arena.
Steph Laughton won the Open Women’s Run Swim Run by a comfortable margin with team mate Nicole Walker coming in third. Adam Simpson won the Under 19 Men’s Run Swim Run in similarly convincing fashion.
In the beach events, 2009 national champion Joe Kemp showed good form to dominate the Under 19 Men’s Beach Sprint and then narrowly miss winning the Open Men’s Beach Sprint to fellow national champion Ben Ryan from South Brighton. The highlight of this day will however be remembered for the ease with which the Under 19 Men’s Beach Relay team won their event with the surprising Dan Gold and Abe Kemp showing unknown speed to drive the team home.
Sunday brought far calmer conditions that those experienced on Saturday and the events kicked off with the Long and Short Course Canoe races.
St Clair had two crews involved in the Canoe events with both crews coming away from the racing with a placing each. The Under 19 Men in the Short Course event and the Open Women in the Long Course event.
The rest of the day’s events ran well for St Clair with many significant placing’s being achieved notably the Open Women’s Surf Teams who won the event by finishing in the first four places, Steph Laughton 1st, Hannah Cullen 2nd, Nicole Walker 3rd and Carla Laughton 4th for a grand total of 10 points. Second placing’s were also achieved in the Under 19 Women, Open Women and Open Men’s Board Relays.
The final events for the day were the Diamond/Iron races and the Taplin relay’s. With competitors entered in each event for the first time in several years club strength was beginning to shine through.
In the Under 16 events Angus McKenzie and Cam Burrows raced well in their Ironman final and Kim Martyn finished strongly just outside the places in her diamond event. In the Under 19 events Adam Simpson battled hard with the two South Brighton competitors eventually giving way on the final ski leg to finish third, Hannah Cullen finished fourth in the Under 19 Women’s race. In the Open Women’s race only two competitors entered on the day both from St Clair (Nicole Walker and Steph Laughton) these two girls had an epic battle all the way to the finish line with Steph winning the run to the line, in the Open Men’s race James Coombes failed to build on a strong board leg eventually finishing fourth.
The final series of events were the Taplin relay’s with St Clair’s Under 16 Men’s team kicking things off. For a team of young competitors racing in unfamiliar disciplines their fourth placing was pleasing to see. Both St Clair teams finished third in their events after contesting for the lead through the event both were unfortunate not to cross the line first. The Open Women’s team of Carla, Nicole and Steph chased South Brighton hard all the way to finish 2nd. Thus it was left to the Open Men’s team to take chase the title the other teams had battled so hard to achieve. In an event Chairman Antony Mason described as the best team effort he had seen from a St Clair men’s team for some time St Clair took the race to the other teams from the opening board legs by James Coombes and Mick Hastie holding a lead into the swim events which after impressive swims by both Rhys Applegarth and Adam Simpson became daylight heading into the final two ski legs. Prior to the event the strength of the Taylor’s Mistake team in the ski legs was highlighted and through these two legs they gradually narrowed the gap culminating in Taylor’s final paddler Liam O'Loughlin joining our own Joel Davies on the final wave of the day. Taking what looked to be a better line Liam had the jump on Joel but showing determination beyond his physical limits Joel reeled him to cross the line first.
A remarkable way to end Canterbury Champs for the St Clair team.
Surf Lifesaving Canterbury Champs Results 2010