Seven members of Crawley Town Life Saving Club travelled to Australia’s Gold Coast to take part in the 2024 World Life Saving Championships. The pool events took place in the magnificent open air 50m Gold Coast Aquatic Centre pool at Kurrawa.

Amaia Lopez, representing Great Britain’s six strong (GBR) National Girls Youth team was Crawley Town’s most successful swimmer reaching one “A” and three “B” individual finals. She also won a silver medal in the paired 12.5m Line throw and a bronze in the team SERC and took part in four more “A” finals in the team relays.

Representing the Open GBR men’s team, Jack Sadberry and Thomas Leggitt helped GBR’s men qualify for two “A” and two “B” relay finals, winning bronze medals in the 4 x 100m Obstacles relay. Individually, Jack made a further two “B” finals where his best performance was in the 100m Manikin Carry with fins finishing 9^th and setting a new British record of 46.34 seconds. Thomas also gave GBR two further “B” final appearances and hence more world points in the 200m Obstacles and 100m Rescue Medley.

Sadly, on this occasion, Crawley Town could not field either a Youth or Open Club team in the World Club Championships, so with the approval of all concerned, the Australian team of Mordialloc, based in the state of Victoria (close to Melbourne), invited Amaia to join their Youth team and in doing so she achieved a further four “A” finals which included a new British record in the demanding 200m Super Lifesaver. She also helped her new Australian teammates gain relay finals, two “A” finals and a “B” final, including silver medals in a very exciting 4 x 50m Obstacles relay, finishing less than half a second behind winners Maroochydore from Queensland, Australia. This concluded five remarkable days of swimming for Amaia, covering seventeen separate events which required both heats and finals – in other words, she competed in thirty-four races in just over five days.

In the World Masters Lifesaving Championships, Crawley Town had two representatives in the Men’s 35-39 age group, twins Laurie and Marcus Hughes. Marcus became World Masters Champion in the gruelling 2km beach run, whilst brother Laurie just lost out on a gold medal when finishing runner-up in the beach flags. These were terrific achievements considering that Australia is regarded as the home of Surf Lifesaving competition. In the pool, the brothers paired up and finished 4^th in the 12.5m Line throw, 0.18 seconds behind bronze and only 0.85 seconds behind gold.

Crawley Town’s past double national title and British record holder, George Hopkinson, who won a European open bronze for the club at the European Championships, also competed in that age group but for the club he now represents, Mordialloc, following his move to Australia to start a family.  George, who finished 7^th in the Line throw, convincingly won two World Masters fins titles in his favoured events to the delight of his new family and club.

Crawley Town’s British record breaking 55/64 Ladies Masters could not field their unbeaten 230+ team at this event, so Donna Wickens and Jennifier Amos teamed up with two ladies from the UK’s Retford and District Club to achieve 5^th place in the 4 x 50m Obstacles, 4^th place in the 4 x 50m Rescue Medley and a silver medal in the 4 x 25m Manikin Carry relay.  Jennifer paired up with Donna to take a magnificent gold medal in the 12.5m Line throw. Donna achieved her highest individual placing in the 55/59 age group of 5^th in the 100m Obstacles race for which she currently holds the British record.

After the excitement and pressure of the World Championships fortnight, competitors will now rest and build slowly into the forthcoming season and subsequent trials for next year’s 2025 Commonwealth Championships taking place in Swansea, Wales between 10^th and 13^th July. If you want to be part of the action, please come along and join Crawley Town Life Saving Club at K2 on a Tuesday evening and we will be pleased to provide you with the opportunity to do so.

For further information on Crawley Town Life Saving Club please visit www.crawleytownlsc.com

Report by Gary Lee