Australia was set to field their strongest surf lifesaving team in years at the World Championships

One of the strongest assembled Australian surf lifesaving teams in years will have to wait a further two years to compete on the world stage – and our emerging talent might suffer in spite of it.

ONE of the strongest assembled Australian surf lifesaving teams in years will have to wait a further two years to compete on the world stage – and our emerging talent might suffer in spite of it.

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Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the International Lifesaving Federation decided to postpone the 2020 Lifesaving World Championships which were due to be held in Riccione, Italy later this year.

The Championships have instead been rescheduled for 2022.

Georgia Miller won the female Ocean M race at the International Surf Rescue Challenge last year. Picture credit: Surf Life Saving Australia.

Australian Surf Life Saving Team Head Coach Kurt Wilson believes that the team they had selected, which was due to be announced right as Australia began to feel the effects of the pandemic, would have been a challenge for any nation to defeat.

While the bulk of the squad, which includes the likes of Gold Coast athletes Georgia Miller, Harriet Brown, Prue Davies and Riley Fitzsimmons, won’t drastically “age out” by 2022, Wilson fears for Australia’s emerging stars.

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A youth squad brimming with talent was preparing to seek redemption after losing to New Zealand in the last world’s cycle but now will likely be too old to compete and may miss out entirely on the chance to represent their country.

“To have that whole age group taken away, it will have a potentially long term impact on our program,” Wilson said.

“The coaches and our program had done a great job of building a youth team who I think would have won worlds.

“We’ll have to do some strategic planning for how we map a pathway out for them because they’re going to miss a whole World’s youth cycle.

“We’re pretty lucky of the age and stage of athletes in our program.

“We had a mix of experience with Kendrick (Louis) and Harriet (Brown) as well as Georgia (Miller) who is in her early 20s so we don’t think many people will age out (in the open side) which is exciting.

“We probably, what I thought, had selected one of the best Australian teams to go to Worlds in a long time.”

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Wilson said Australia was already in talks with New Zealand to run some trans-Tasman competitions once borders reopened but the focus for athletes would be on leveraging as much as they could from domestic competition later this year.

“Not having any international racing for our athletes since late 2019 is not going to work heading into 2022,” he said.