Last weekend a team of 15 young athletes and their parents travelled up to Orewa for “Oceans 18”, Junior Surf Sport Nationals.  Everyone had a great time and every athlete exceeded their goals in at least one event.

Conditions were a little tough with a constant strong wind off the sea that never let up, choppy surf and king tides, but the water was warm and it only rained a bit.  We had an added complication of the beach being under constant threat of being closed due to contaminated water, there was some conjecture as to who was responsible for this, but we won’t go into that here.

The highlights were:

  • Zoe Collier 5th in the U13 sprint final – one of our best ever results
  • In run-swim-run finals Alex Finlayson (15th), Michael Lansdown (17th) and Cristiaan Bull (20th)
  • In surf race finals Michael Lansdown (10th), Grace Pritchard (15th), Jonty Lowe (21st), Joel Russel, Alex and Anna McLaren also getting through
  • Hugh MacIntosh and Zoe Collier both coming 15th in beach flags, Alex and Joel coming in 25th

Unfortunately the tube and board rescues, U11 Diamond (McLaren twins) were cancelled as we were likely to make a good showing in these.

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