Cronulla Surf Lifesaving Club took top honours on its home beach at the 8th annual Short Course Surf Carnival on Saturday.
The well-supported carnival covered the whole field catering for competitors from under-8s to over-40s. And with the weight of nippers and one of the country’s biggest beach sections Cronulla powered home taking the Doran Financial Services overall club point score from Bate Bay rivals Wanda SLSC.
The juniors ran through their big program in the morning’s clean conditions with a light- moderate south easterly wind and slight two-foot swell at 18.3 degrees ocean temp, continuing onto the opens and masters.
The open events started with the two-kilometre Open Vici Shark Island Ski Race where the 30 competitors battled into the fresh southerly before North Bondi took the cash just ahead of Elouera with 1996 Olympian Jim Walker in third.
It was a local affair in the women's race with Cronulla paddler Carla Papac finishing metres ahead of Wanda’s Georgia Sinclair.
Cronulla flexed their considerable beach muscle in the FreightPOWER All Age Beach Relay with the Wanda star Ali Najim taking the new Aussie Home Loans Open Male 2km beach run and then the relay with clubmate and under-19 winner Lachlan Crawford. Wanda’s Kai Hammond won the under-17s in a male clean sweep.
Cronulla’s young up and coming under-12 and under-13 girls took out the 1km individual and team 1km run.
It was a good day for young Wanda competitor Nathan Jay who took out the Channel 7 Open Ironman race minutes after anchoring the winning under-17 board relay team and Open Board Relay.
The carnival has grown to be one of the major club events on the local surf lifesaving calendar.
The carnival also featured inclusion events.
It was a historical moment for clubs to run inclusion events within a carnival program, aiming to give young people with disabilities beach safety and water awareness skills and offer inclusion within their mainstream nipper groups.
The Bate Bay inclusion groups will also feature in next weekend’s Bate Bay Fins Fun Day Carnival.
Carmelo Pesce, Mayor of the Sutherland Shire, encouraged members of the public to come down to Cronulla Surf Club even though the clubhouse is undergoing major renovations.
“It’s business as usual,” he said.
“Surf clubs are run by community volunteers, the surf club exists to save lives, educate and teach the community about surf safety.”
