Australian Surf Life Saving titles 2012: Big moments in pictures

In Pictures: The sand has settled after nine huge days of action at the Australian surf life saving championships. Some of the big moments of the 2021 carnival in photos.

Some of the action from The Aussies 2021 in pictures.

It stretched across nine days and involved almost 6000 competitors from the youth age group right up to masters and elite athletes.

After a year off due to the coronavirus pandemic, one of the biggest sporting events in Australia came back with a vengeance on the Sunshine Coast.

Clubs from across Australia competed and there was fabulous action despite the relatively small surf across the carnival.

We take a look at the action in pictures.

Gallery: The double ski was one of the most anticipated events of the 2021 Australian surf life saving championships. Pic: HarvPix.

Gallery: Avoca young gun Natalia Drobot competing in the single ski event on the final day of the competition. Pic: HarvPix.

Gallery: North Bondi’s Jackson Collins was elated with has win in the single ski – and event contested by numerous Olympians of the past and future. Pic: HarvPix.

Not everyone is in their teens in surf lifesaving with the Masters one of the most popular competitions at the 2021 Aussies on the Sunshine Coast. Pic: HarvPix

The 2021 Australian surf life saving championships attracted close to 6000 male and female competitors from across the country to the Sunshine Coast.

Gallery: It was hard to wipe the smile off Georgia Miller’s face at the Australian championships. Not only did she defend her ironwoman crown she also won another eight gold medals across a range of individual and team events.

There were a few famous faces in the Masters competition, including the legendary Grant Kenny who showed he still has what it takes to race onto a podium. Pic: HarvPix

Gallery: The surf might have been flat but the celebrations were wild after North Curl Curl won in the surfboats at the 2021 life saving championships.

The North Bondi U17 board rescue winners. The Sydney club had a great championships this year with numerous wins across the age groups.

Huge crowds turned out to see the great Ali Day win his first Australian ironman crown at the event. It was the only big race Day has not won in surf life saving. Pic: HarvPix

Ski racing is one of the most popular events of the Australia championships and the masters racing was hotly contested on the Sunshine Coast.

Newport young gun Mitch Morris was named the male competitor of the carnival after numerous medals across a range of events at the carnival.

The colour and action from the Masters competition at the 2021 Aussies.

SURF CHAMPIONS, OLYMPIANS HELPING ALI DAY BACK TO HIS BEST

They are guys Ali Day has known most of his life – champion paddlers, Olympic kayakers, ironmen and surf legends.

Athletes he’s competed against since his days as a youngster at Warilla Barrack Point surf life saving club on the NSW south coast and who over the last year or so have been helping bring him back up to speed – and then some.

Old mates who helped trigger one of the greatest comebacks in sport after his career came close to ending after a freak accident saw him break both wrists, be sidelined from racing for almost two years and fall into severe depression.

And they call themselves the Koala Park gang.

Ali Day has returned from injury better than ever.

If six-time Coolangatta Gold champion Day ticks off the one thing missing from his CV by winning an Australian ironman title on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday this gang will have played an important role in his success.

Surf legend Trevor Hendy, now his great mate and coach at Surfers Paradise. Ocean paddler and two-time Molokai winner Corey Hill and Avoca kayaking Olympians Lachie Tame and Riley Fitzsimmons who helped bring him back to his best after his accident.

Avoca paddler Riley Fitzsimmons and Lachie Tame, who both train on the Gold Coats, are both heading to Tokyo. Pic: Supplied

“I am a much better ski paddler because of them. They helped build my confidence back up,’’ said Day who bumped into Tame, heading to the Tokyo Olympics with Fitzsimmons, one day at the beach and accepted an invitation to come training.

“It was awesome being with them. Every time you go out with them the bar rises It was the best thing for me, so refreshing to be around great guys and enjoying myself again. I’ve been grateful to learn from them’’

Ali Day celebrates winning during the Nutri-Grain Ironman series.

In an extraordinary show of force Day won every leg on his return to the Nutri-Grain ironman series in 2021 and is favourite for a breakthrough win on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday.

He conquered serious bouts of depression to achieve the feat and still speaks to a therapist regularly and to his friends and club mates openly about the issue to help others.

“I’m in a really good place right now. But I was the last person I thought would be affected like this, by depression,’’ he said.

“I am an ironman. You aren’t supposed to show emotion, you have to be tough.

“It was the worst period of my life and I still see a therapist to help deal with the day to day stuff.

“Now I’d like to help others. It’s why I talk about it and do work with the youngsters at the club.’’

Ali Day and baby son Danny. Pic: Supplied,

DARREN AND JORDAN MERCER ONE OF SIX FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS RACING

Ironwoman Jordan Mercer came up with the idea but at first her famous ironman father Darren Mercer was reluctant to commit.

After days of coaxing and “some peer group pressure’’ from clubbies at their local surf club the former multiple Nutri-Grain ironman champion and NSW Sport Hall of Famer originally from Wollongong agreed to race with his daughter in a race.

They weren’t the only father/daughter combo to have the same idea.

Jasmine and Michael Locke racing together in the mixed ski race.

In fact six sets of father and daughters raced the open mixed double ski at the Australian surf life saving championships on Thursday, including the Mercers, now based at Noosa, Michael and Jasmine Locke from Bulli, Todd and Khia Grace and Ash and Jenaya Massie, all from Maroochydore and the Sawtell teams of Alyssa and Sean Golding and Tony and Ruby Ensbey.

“We have never been on a ski together before this,’’ Jordan said. “There was no yelling, too much heavy breathing for that.

The Bulli and Maroochydore father and daughter teams.

“Dad never actually said yes to this but he never said no either and he did turn up.’’

But the big-names pairs bid for success ended in the semi-finals where they missed the finals cut by one.

The Bulli team of Michael and Jasmine Locke made it through and finished 15th.

Northcliffe’s Danielle McKenzie and Mackenzie Hynard won the mixed ski gold from Newport’s Jemma Smith and Mitchell Trim with North Bondi’s Brianna Massie and Jackson Collins taking the silver.

FROM RAMADAN FASTING TO SURF LIFE SAVING GOLD FOR WANDA’S ALI

More than a decade after he won his first Australian surf life saving gold medal as a 15-year-old, Wanda beach sprinter Ali Najem has done it again on the same beach and after fasting for Ramadan.

The 26-year-old claimed gold on Mooloolaba Beach in the 2km beach sprint on a comeback from a foot reconstruction.

Ali Najem on his way to winning gold on Wednesday. Pic: Supplied

“Being an Australian Muslim it is our holy month of Ramadan so we don’t eat from sunrise to sunset, so I have been fasting leading up to the race today,’’ Najem said.

“Except for today, today I broke my fast. It is awesome to represent my religion over here, there aren’t many young Australian Muslim kids that do this and I have been blessed to be a part of the system where there is no difference, everyone is equal.

“As well as Ramadan, I had a full reconstruction last year in August and was told I couldn’t run for six to nine months and find myself back here winning a gold.

Ali Najem and Wanda teammate Chloe Gentle. Pic: HarvPix

“It has been a long rehab but I did everything right, I have been training out at Gymea in an altitude chamber called base camp and that has helped me get me fit and ready for this.”

In 2014 Najem was training with clubmates from Wanda when they saw three youngsters in strife in the surf.

As some of the young surf lifesavers raced for help, Najem was involved in rescuing the trio and bringing them safely back to shore.

TOKYO OLYMPIANS WIN GOLD IN SKI RELAY

Our lifesavers and life guards have saved the day for the Australian Olympic team in the past and these two paddlers are hoping a sweet victory at The Aussies 2021 on the Sunshine Coast is a sign of things to come in Tokyo later this year.

The Avoca trio of Tokyo-bound Lachlan Tame and Riley Fitzsimmons and crewmate Peter Mitchell have snatched the first gold medal of the open competition at the Australian surf life saving titles in the single ski relay.

Riley Fitzsimmons on his way to gold in the ski relay for Avoca.

The pair beat the Northcliffe team of Sam Norton, Tom Norton and Mackenzie Hynard with the Newport trio of Mitchell Trim, Jayke Rees and top ironman Max Brooks third.

“We’ll be lining up in the K2 1000m and K4 500m – it’s going to be our last opportunity to really practice and perform before we go over to Tokyo,’’ Fitzsimmons said after the race.

“So a lot of preparation is going to go into that racing at nationals, really practising those one percenters on and off the water.’’

Tame and Fitzsimmons were named in the sprint canoe team to paddle in Tokyo last year – two of the first athletes to have their tickets to Tokyo stamped after the postponement of the games to 2021.

Riley Fitzsimmons and Jordan Wood racing in an international K2 1000m event.

“We always say that the ski relay is such a high testosterone event, there’s always great athletes, there’s always a couple of Olympians rolling around,’’ Tame said.

“We’ve got two Olympians in one relay team. It’s such a high calibre event that you’ve got these people coming across from another intense sport and bring that edge of racing and professionalism.’’

Also in the field was Australian Olympic Team Deputy Chef de Mission and triple Olympian Ken Wallace (Tugun SLSC) and 1996 Olympic kayaker Jim Walker (North Bondi SLSC)).

Paddlers have a strong history of success in the Olympic arena with one of the most memorable wins in recent times the K4 1000m win by Tate Smith, Dave Smith, Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear – all Australian surf life savers – over Hungary and the Czech Republic at the London Olympics in 2012.

Ken Wallace carrying the Queen’s Baton before the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

At the Beijing Games in 2008, lifeguard Ken Wallace won a paddling gold and a bronze in one of the best moments of the event in China. Wallace is now a coach for the Australian canoe/kayak team.

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