Coolangatta Gold: Hawthorn’s Josh Doherty beats Victoria’s cold and a hot field to win iconic event

Josh Doherty was a bit of an outsider when he took to the warm waters off Coolangatta last month, but that mattered little when he pinched an iconic event from the clutches of more fancied performers from Australia’s northern states.

Josh Doherty celebrates his win in the Coolangatta Gold

Josh Doherty was a bit of an outsider when he took to the warm waters off Coolangatta last month.

But that mattered little when, one of just three Victorians in the field, he pinched the iconic Coolangatta Gold from the clutches of more fancied performers from Australia’s northern states.

The Hawthorn 19-year-old won the 19-34 age division at the race, considered to be the premier surf lifesaving event in Australia.

Competitors tackle a gruelling 41.8km course from Coolangatta to Broadbeach and back, negotiating a 23km ski paddle, 3.5km swim, 6.1km board leg and 9.2km run on the sand.

“I didn’t really know exactly where I was at, I’d never done the race before,” he said. “But I’d been training hard, giving it absolutely everything. My goal was to put my foot on the line and see what happened from there.”

The Coolangatta Gold is the Melbourne Cup of the sport.

“It’s such an incredible event to be part of,” he said. “Running through the transition area, the crowds are cheering you on.”

Most events on the ironman calendar are shorter sprint events lasting around 20 minutes. The Coolangatta Gold is an ultra-marathon epic that requires a gruelling five hours.

Josh Doherty at Coolangatta

“I’ve never experienced that level of pain in my life,” Doherty laughed. “But, I loved every minute of it.”

Residing in Melbourne’s leafy green eastern suburbs, Doherty has not grown up with warm weather and surf beaches across the road from his front yard like many of the Queenslanders and NSW competitors.

“I was about six or seven and my family went to Point Leo for a holiday,” he said. “I saw the nippers (junior lifesaving) and said, ‘I want to do that, I want to do that’.

“It’s a lot harder down here, especially not being able to train year long. And the training squads are much smaller. But we have a strong culture and good squad at Point Leo.

“It (training in the Victorian cold) almost gave me an advantage. You go up there in the warm air and warm water and us Victorians are saying ‘How good is this?’.”

Doherty trained three times a day for five months in the lead up to the race, with the majority of his sessions completed solo in the freezing Victorian waters.

Pool sessions, gym work and running, with some training on the Yarra thrown in, have become part and parcel of his daily life.

While putting the finishing touches on his second-year science studies at university is front and centre at the moment, Doherty is about to embark on a massive summer of competition.

At the end of the month he will compete for Point Leo in the World Lifesaving Championships in Adelaide before contesting the Ocean6 series throughout summer in an attempt to qualify for the Nutri Grain Ironman finals.