TWO Trigg Island Surf Life Saving Club athletes took home gold medals from the 2017 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships in Queensland recently.
Lifesaver Will Savage (14) won the under-14s Ironman title while his former coach Carolyn Ryan (51) won the female masters single ski race.
The club also had 11 out of 12 youth athletes reach the finals in individual or team events.
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READ NOWSeveral masters competitors also reached the latter stages of the championships.
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Will’s mother Vickie, a 30-year Trigg member, said she and her husband were proud of Will’s title, which was the club’s first since the early 1970s.
“He obviously put in a lot of hard work and trained hard and achieved one of the goals he wanted to do,” she said.
“He has been at the surf club since he started in the under-8s.”
Vickie said the club was dominant in the youth division.
“Taking them over there (Queensland) makes them realise that what they actually do need to achieve because over there; it is another level above what they usually do here,” she said.
Ryan, a Trigg life member, said the conditions for the final race suited her.
“It was pretty exciting actually because a few days before my competition (the water) was very flat,” she said.
“It was not really the way I like it, I like it when it is rougher with a few waves.”
Ryan said she had competed for 35 years and her victory marked her second national gold medal.
“I just love competing, meeting new people, seeing people that have been there for years and being a role model,” she said.
She said she had known Will since he was born and he was among a group of youngsters who would be the “future of surf lifesaving”.