In a late surge, WA’s Western Suns snatched a narrow 1 point victory over Victoria to secure 3rd place behind NSW and Queensland at the recent Surf Life Saving Australia Interstate Championships at Newport Beach, NSW.
While there were a number of stand out individual performances, it was certainly a team effort that saw WA, ably led by team captains Dan Humble and Tegan Maffescioni, retain it’s third consecutive third place finish at the event.
WA showed their speed on the sand with world champion Jackson Symonds continuing his reign, winning the open beach sprint, while team mate Sophie Watts, in a tight finish with Queensland’s Elizabeth Forsyth, took gold in the female event. Symonds also took silver in the beach flags.
The open female beach relay team (Watts, Maffescioni, Nowell and Albertsen) and youth male beach relay team (Kirkpatrick, Servaas, Eley, Walker) both excelled to secure silver, while the open male team of Symonds, Humble, Caren and Savage took bronze.
Team captain Tegan Maffescioni took a bronze in the open female flags, as did youth athletes Tai Kirkpatrick and Sydney Rafferty.
In the water, team captain Dan Humble and Devon Caren claimed the event win in the open male ski, while Riley Walker & Macarah Mallis took bronze in the youth mixed ski relay, as did Nikita Fredonnet & Patrick Eley in the youth mixed board.
The youth board rescue event saw Fredonnet back on the podium, this time with Chalise Pratt as they took a bronze in the event, while fellow youth athletes Macarah Mallis and Soraya Lee secured third in the Ironwoman event, and the youth male taplin team of Wlaker, Eley, Colliss and Servaas also claimed a third.
Not far up the beach the atmosphere was high, with parents and friends from all over Australia cheering on the youth competitors as they contested the Youth Pathway Cup. Once again WA proved to be a beach state with best results coming on the sand.
Lucy Hills took silver in the U14 female beach flags as did our U15 female beach relay team while Imogen Herrington and Caleb Bailey both took bronze in their respective beach flag events.
In the water arena we had numerous 3rd place finishes with all of our water athletes performing well. Declan Cook took on a huge workload filling in for an injured athlete in both the beach sprint and beach flag events, along with his own water commitments.
Our Western Suns Youth Development Squad demonstrated the potential of our emerging young athletes, finishing with a 5th place.
Congratulations and thank you to everyone involved!
Interstates Championships – full results here.
Many athletes stayed on to compete at the Manly & Freshwater Carnivals that weekend – notable results from those carnivals can be found here.
Overall Interstate point score tally:
| Place | State | Points |
| 1 | New South Wales | 289 |
| 2 | Queensland | 254 |
| 3 | Western Australia | 168 |
| 4 | Victoria | 167 |
| 5 | New South Wales | 158 |
| 6 | South Australia | 119 |
| 7 | Tasmania (Youth Team Only) | 38 |
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