Clifton crush it at national lifesaving championships

Clifton crushed it at the 2023 DHL Lifesaving National Club Championships in Gqeberha.

The Cape-based lifesaving club combined for an overall tally of 916 points to comfortably be crowned the winners.

More than 1,500 athletes from as young as eight took to Kings Beach’s surf and sand and the Newton Park Swimming Pool as 34 clubs from across the country battled for the bragging rights of being lifesaving’s best in SA.

All the athletes are on regular duty every weekend around the country and, when necessary, during the week.

But once a year, they get to showcase their sporting lifesaving skills in a competitive environment.

Gqeberha has played host to this lifesaving festival for the past four years and this year’s championships exceeded expectations, with a full complement of athletes on display.

Covid-19 interrupted one of the years and last year the event was also limited as families were dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic.

However, this past week the championship returned to all its glory and the best of the best in lifesaving pitched up.

Clifton and Fish Hoek clubs engaged in the most thrilling junior and senior surf championship in the first three days.

The winners are determined with the combined points tally of the seniors and juniors and it was Clifton, thanks mainly to their juniors, who took top honours with a combined total of 589 points to Fish Hoek’s 585.

Never has the club surf title been that close in points.

The juniors scored 455 of those points to Fish Hoek’s 337, but in the seniors Fish Hoek topped the table with 248 points to Clifton’s 134.

Clifton also showed their versatility among the juniors in scoring 277 points in the pool championship as they won the combined surf and pool junior title by some distance in totalling 732 points to secondplaced Kings Beach’s 373.

Fish Hoek, who scored 15 points in the pool championship, were third in the juniors with 352 points.

Harties Reflection won the junior pool title with 341 points and Woodridge, the only school entered as a junior lifesaving club, scored 171.

Tukkies Lifesaving Club dominated the senior pool championship in scoring 275 points. The next best was Clifton’s 50 points.

Summerstrand’s Nippers were as dominant in the pool championship in scoring an emphatic title victory but were edged into second place by Fish Hoek’s Nippers in the surf championship.

Individually, Sasha-Lee Nordegen Corris enjoyed an outstanding championship in the surf and pool events.

The 25-year-old tied for first place with Tuks’s 19-year-old Kendra du Toit in the pool championship on 42 points for females aged 19 and over.

The men’s 19-and-over pool title was also a tie with Tuks’s Ockert van Schalkwyk and Robbie le Roux on 39 points.

Luke Nisbet was named senior male athlete of the surf championship and Nordegen Corris was the female winner.