Mastering sand and surf

Champion life savers in hot competition

It has an incredible 5km plus of sand and surf race tracks, more than 8000 competitors from 222 clubs competing in 406 different events, and it’s overseen by 504 officials.

The 2024 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships kick off this weekend with competitors as young as 12year-old Bronte Brennan from Currumbin and as old as 87year-old Benjamin Day from Alexandra Headland.

Heading into the second weekend of this iconic event – the biggest in almost two decades – the best life savers under 17, under 19 and in open competition will compete for the most sought after crown in the sport – Australian champion.

“Surf sport is in a very healthy place,” Surf Life Saving Australia general manager of sport Wayne Druery said.

After 10,000 competed at Kurrawa back in 2006, numbers dipped, but they have been creeping back up in recent times to near record levels this year.

“We are running good events and people enjoy it,” Druery said.

“Nearly every event we have run in the last 12 months we have had an increase in competitors.

“The Coolangatta Gold was up 43 per cent and the NutriGrain trials were about 10 per cent higher for instance.’’

This massive sporting event – one of the largest and longest in the Southern Hemisphere – has been running since 1915 when Sydney’s famous Bondi club hosted the inaugural competition.

But the idea of the protection of bathers dates back to 1905, according to the national museum of Australia, when Manly councils employed two fishermen to patrol.

Druery oversees an enormous team – a small number of paid staff along with contractor volunteers from clubs across Australia – who will run events for surf life saving members for nine days.

They will be part of safety teams, as well as referees, drivers for IRBs and jet skis, sectional managers, drone operators, timekeepers and ground announcers.

“We could at any time have up to 10 areas of water and beach in operation,’’ Druery said of the event that spreads across beaches, including Maroochydore as main hub, Alexandra Headlands, Mooloolaba and Coolum.

About 1500 youngsters from 12 years old to 15 years old will race the youth event this weekend with more than 2000 competing in the Masters event.

The biggest component is the open competition, which includes under 17 and under 19s racing, with 4728 competitors and which concludes next weekend. This is 33 per cent larger than the last carnival held on the Sunshine Coast in 2021. Queensland surf lifesaving clubs supply the most competitors with 2844, while there are 92 internationals competing from a range of countries including New Zealand, Japan, Britain, France and South Africa.