Lifesavers on form

THE recent Irish Water Safety National Stillwater competition saw teams and individual competitors from counties across the country, including Sligo Surf Lifesaving club.

The Sligo team delivered strong performances across junior ( 1416), seniors ( 16+) and masters( 30+) over two days at the Sports Arena in University of Limerick.

Through a variety of events, competitors test their Surf Lifesaving skills and abilities against one another in a highly competitive manner. Events are designed to test the specific skillsets required to be a Surf Lifesaver including underwater obstacle courses, simulated manikin rescues and relay events.

Sligo was strongly represented with a junior boys’ team, senior men’s team and individual competitors in the junior girls and masters category.

All competitors did their club and county proud, delivering strong performances with a number of top 10 and medal finishes.

Among the good competitiors were brothers and Irish national surflifesaving squad members, Joseph Mooney and Peter Mooney, with Joseph securing the only broken individual Irish record in the 100m manikin carry with fins. Also in the junior boys, Adam Hunter and Niall O’Connor secured a fantastic third place national finish in the line throw. Other strong performances were delivered from the junior boys’ Augustine Bamber, Orin Mitchell and Niall O’Donovan and junior girl, Ellen Woodward who did well in both the individual and relay events, achieving top 10 finishes.

Overall the senior men finished an exemplary third place finish in the national rankings with the juniors securing a ninth place finish overall.

Attention now turns to the nippers ( age 8- 14) of Sligo Surf Lifesaving Club who competed at the Connacht/ Ulster regional at Sligo Regional Sports Centre.

After their success in the competition, many Nippers have qualified to compete at the Nationals which will be held in the Sports Arena, University of Limerick on the 22nd April 2017.