By RON LANE
THIS weekend will be the big one for the Noosa Heads SLSC IRB competition teams when they travel to Mooloolaba to contest the national titles. All indications are that Noosa will be represented by under 23 male and under 23 female teams, an open male team and two masters teams.
To date, it has been a good winter for the Noosa teams for they have competed at carnivals on both the Gold and Sunshine Coast beaches, thus gaining experience in various surf conditions.
At the recent state titles, one team reached the finals and others reached semi-finals. As this is their first hit out at the Nationals, the experience for this relatively young crew plus the experience gained in earlier carnivals will be invaluable.
As Sunshine Beach is still in the process of consolidating a structure for their IRB teams, their competition will not start until next racing season. With the experience gained by their IRB crews patrolling the very treacherous Alexandria Bay, we can be assured that when their teams are finalised, they will be worth watching.
During the winter months, a lot of events are centered around the endurance races, with the summer months being the shorter course surf carnival events. For example on 26 July Jordan Mercer, Lachlan Lansdown and Rhys Burrows, will fly to Hawaii to contest the Molaki to Oahu World Paddle Board Championship. This will be contested over a distance of 55km.
Last year’s event was indeed good for Noosa with Jordan finishing first in her division and Lachlan second in his. Noosa head coach Darren Mercer, himself a former iron man champion said, “It is a very tough race, starting at Molaki and finishing just north of Diamond Head. The race takes the contestants through big open channel crossings with some of the biggest ocean swells imaginable. These are of course influenced by the winds and tide. Also this year, we will have a big group from Australia so this is good for the sport.”
The other endurance race on the program is the Coolangatta Gold. To ensure that all athletes are ready, their training is already well underway. The event which will be held on the weekend of Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October will be contested over a course extending from Coolangatta to Broadbeach; with short course events being held on the Saturday and the long course events on the Sunday. Over the years, the Gold has always been contested by both Noosa and Sunshine members, starting at the minimum age of 16 years through to the Opens. This year the Sunshine club will enter two categories; a team event which consisting of four members and the individual events, in which the club will have two entries, Brock Redwood and Tristan Collins. It is interesting to note that all these people will be entered in the under 19 age group. With the Noosa club just coming out of a season in which several of the young ones made big impressions and Sunshine doing the same, it speaks volumes for the future of both clubs.
On 15 August, Martha Kneale of the Noosa Club will take part in a 12km charity swim from Mudjimba Beach to Mooloolaba to raise funds for Nambour Special Schools. Martha, who is 22, works at the Noosa Sports and Spinal Physiotherapy Centre. Joining the Noosa Nippers at 10 years of age, she has been involved with Seahorse Nippers and now holds the bronze medallion.
As a part of the event, entrants are expected to have raised $1000 which will go to the cause. To help in the fund-raising, a special breakfast will be held on Sunday 26 July in the newly decked out section of the club courtyard. All members are invited and donations will be accepted. The breakfast will start at 8am following the 7am training swim.
