Australian Champion Club - 14 Years in a Row!

BMD Northcliffe Surf Club has taken out the Australian Surf Life Saving Champion Club title for the 14th consecutive year, despite a heavily reduced program due to extreme weather caused by ex-tropical Cyclone Debbie. Many competitors were left devastated after being informed by SLSA that all remaining water events were to be cancelled on Friday night due to anticipated poor water quality and deteriorating surf conditions. 

Despite this disappointment, BMD Northcliffe had some fantastic results in the oceans swims, surf rescue events and board riding which were all held earlier in the week as well as some team events that were held on Wednesday before the cancellation of the remaining water events. In the 2km ocean swims the club amassed a staggering 55 points with special mention to Laura Taylor taking gold in the U19 Female 2km. Our Surf Rescue team also contributed a massive 43 points with Callum Breetzke, Jarrod Shute and Georgia Moore all taking out their respective Champion Lifesaver events and our U17 Patrol Team also claiming gold.

With a handy points lead heading in to Wednesday, the club took a clean sweep of all the surf team events that were contested winning the U17, U19 and Open Female as well as the U17 Male Surf Team. Our open girls also claimed victory in the Board Relay.  The only events to be contested on Thursday were the 2km Runs with Ella Coates defending her open title to claim gold for the second year in a row. 

In Masters Competition, our small team of ladies led the way with Lee Vrolyks taking 9 gold medals and Tiarne Smith and Anna Ballara taking home 6 golds each. Stephen Fry also took home an impressive 5 gold medals. BMD Northcliffe ended up in second place overall in the masters pointscore behind Bondi. 

Click here for Open Results

Click here for Masters Results

Click here for Youth Results

Courtney Wins Coolangatta Gold

Courtney Hancock has claimed her second Coolangatta Gold victory in an emotional win yesterday. After a disappointing season last season, Courtney refocused in the off season and was in great shape leading in to the event. Courtney led the initial ski leg but really made her move in the swim leg where she surged away from the rest of the field. After the board leg and final run home to Coolangatta, Courtney had a comfortable margin, winning by almost 4 minutes.

In the men's race, we had two top 10 finishers with Taddy McDonnell in 8th and Jake Nicholson rounding out the top 10. Tiarne Smith continued her dominance of the event taking out the 30 - 39 masters division. Bruckner Chase claimed silver in the 50+ male category with Scott Oxenford finishing 3rd.

In the short course event held on Saturday, Ben Cochrane finished 2nd in the elite male category.

BMD Northcliffe Results

1st Elite Female Long Course - Courtney Hancock
1st 30-39 Female Long Course - Tiarne Smith
2nd Elite Male Short Course - Ben Cochrane
2nd 50+ Male Long Course - Brukner Chase
3rd 50+ Male Long Course - Scott Oxenford
5th U19 Female Short Course - Kate Taylor
6th 50+ Male Short Course - Andrew Botha
7th U19 Female Short Course - Grace Rosato
8th Elite Male Long Course - Jarryd McDonnell
10th Elite Male Long Course - Jake Nicholson
10th U19 Male Short Course - Bayden Botha
16th U19 Male Short Course - Harry Crouch

Click here for all results and split times.

BMD Northcliffe Retain World Championship Crown

BMD Northcliffe have defended their World Championship status with a dominant victory at Rescue 2016 in the Netherlands. The club amassed a total of 928 points, winning 16 gold, 11 silver and 7 bronze medals to claim the overall title by a staggering 271 points. 

Competition began with 3 days at the beach at Noordwijk with BMD Northcliffe dominating most of the water events. Shannon Eckstein won 6 gold from 6 events taking a clean sweep of all of the male individual water events. Harriet overcame her major setback of breaking her jaw in the off season to secure her biggest win of her career to take out the Ironwoman. Courtney Hancock won the Surf Race and Danielle McKenzie won gold in the Ski Race. Kristyl Smith and Maddy Dunn claimed gold in the female Board Rescue with Shannon and Caine partnering for the first time to claim gold in the men’s event. BMD Northcliffe finished on a high note at the beach winning both the male and female Taplin Relays and the Ocean Pointscore.

Competition then moved to the pool in Einhoven where our success continued. BMD Northcliffe had not won a gold medal in the pool since 1992 but after day one of competition we had won three. Gold to Samantha Lee in the 200m Obstacles, with Amy Levings claiming silver, another Gold to Samantha teaming up with Danielle McKenzie in the Line Throw and our girls also won the 4 x 50m Obstacle Relay.  Samantha went on to win the 100m Manikin Carry and the 100m Rescue Medley for a total of 4 gold, 2 silver and a bronze in the pool – a fantastic effort considering these events are normally dominated by the Europeans. 

In the Youth Championships, Mitchell Coombes won gold in the Youth Board and Ironman, silver in the Youth Surf Race and Bronze in the Youth Ski Race.

For all BMD Northcliffe Results click here.

Caine Eckstein breaks Guinness World Record

Congratulations to Caine Eckstein who broke the Guinness World Record for most pull ups in 24 hours performing a staggering 7620 pull ups.

When Caine started the attempt, it was thought that the World Record for 6844 but 12 hours in to his attempt it was confirmed that a 17 year old from America had beaten that record the previous month but it had only just been recognised by Guinness World Records. Andrew Shapiro had actually completed 7306 pull ups on the 14 May. Caine was forced to adjust his plan to ensure he completed the additional 460 repetitions. Caine went on to beat that mark by 314 pull ups deciding to finish 45 minutes prior to the 24 hour time limit.

It was great to see all the support Caine had throughout the 24 hour period to help him through the tough times. Caine assures us that he will not be making the attempt again and we don't blame him!

Australian Champion Club 13 Years in a Row!

BMD Northcliffe has won the 2016 Australian Champion Club Trophy continuing its unbeaten record for 13 straight years! The club came away with 21 gold medals, 14 silver medals and 11 bronze medals to win by 86 points from Currumbin.

After becoming the greatest Ironman in history last year surpassing the great Trevor Hendy, Shannon Eckstein this year became the greatest surf life saver in history surpassing Clint Robinson on 36 Australian titles. Shannon now has an astonishing 38 Australian Championships to his name after winning the Open Ironman, Surf Teams and Surf Race for 2016.

After a disappointing Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Series this season, Rebecca Creedy returned to form to take out the Open Ironwoman.

Another standout performer was Nikolas Green who won 4 gold including the U19 Ironman for the second year in a row. Nikolas was also named male competitor of the championships. 

We also created history in the boat section winning our first ever gold medals with both our U19 and Reserve grade claiming gold, swept by Damien Clayphan.

The weekend prior our U15s and U14s competed in the Youth Championship. There was some hot competition led by many of the NSW clubs. The club won 4 bronze medals with Jordan Sergis - U14 Ironman, Eve Lutze - U15 Surf Race, our U15 Board Rescue - Madisyn Armstrong and Zoe Hughes, and our U15 Cameron Relay team - Madisyn Armstrong, Lucia Fildes, Bella Fildes and Zoe Hughes. 

Earlier in the week, our small team of Masters narrowly missed out on retaining their Australian Championship Title with local Club Alexandra Headlands just pipping us by 17 points. The women led the charge with Lee Vrolyks claiming 7 golds, Tiarne Smith with 6 golds and Anna Ballara with 3 gold.

Click Here for Seniors Results (1-6)

Click Here for Masters Results (1-6)

Click Here for Youth Results (1-6)

QLD Champs - 13 Years in a Row!

BMD Northcliffe took out the QLD Surf Life Saving Championships for the 13th consecutive year at North Burleigh on the weekend.

The 3 day event saw the best of the best from QLD in the U17 - Open age groups as well as Masters competition (30+) which was held on Friday.

BMD Northcliffe tasted great success in the major finals package on Sunday with Lucas Allan taking out the Open Male Surf Race, Cory Hill the Open Male Ski Race, Rebecca Creedy the Open Female Board Race, Harriet Brown claiming gold in the Open Ironwoman and our open men taking out the final event of the competition - The Taplin Relay.

Our boat section had a successful carnival with our U19 crew winning gold and our Reserve Grade crew winning silver.

Standout competitors were Alyssa Koenen (4 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze), Nik Green (4 gold, 1 silver), Hannah Sculley (3 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze) and Harriet Brown (3 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze). 

A small team of masters took on testing conditions in competition on Friday to finish 4th overall on the pointscore. Lee Vrolyks won 5 gold and a silver and Allan Nicholls 4 gold and 2 bronze. Hopefully we have a full strength team to defend out Australian title in a months time at Maroochydore.

Click here for Seniors Results

Click here for Masters Results

2016 Youth Champs Wrap Up

The 2016 QLD Youth Surf Life Saving Championships were held on the weekend in testing conditions at North Burleigh. BMD Northcliffe sent a team of 84 nippers to compete against more than 1,750 other nippers from all over QLD in the event, which is the pinnacle sporting event each year for Queensland nippers aged 11 to 15 years old.

Not only were our nippers battling tricky conditions in the surf, they were also faced with blue bottles on the first day of competition which eventually led to the suspension of water events. Prior to water events being postponed, BMD Northcliffe won 2 golds in the U12 Male Cameron Relay and U11 Female Surf Teams. Eva Parish also went on to win gold in the U11 Female 1km Beach run.

Water events resumed on Saturday morning with the blue bottles disappearing overnight much to the relief of our nippers. The majority of races held on Saturday were heats and qualifying events for Sunday’s finals but we added another two gold to the haul in the U15 Female Cameron Relay and U14 Male Cameron Relay.

Sunday saw the under 11 and under 12 water events relocated to North Kirra in the interest of safety. Another 5 gold medals were won on the final day of competition with Caitlyn Miller taking gold in the U13 Ironwoman, Jordan Sergis in the U14 Ironman & Surf Race along with golds in the U14 R&R and U14 Male Board Relay.

Stand out competitors for the carnival were Jordan Sergis (4 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), Eva Parish (2 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze) and Emily Gauld (1 gold, 5 silver, 1 bronze). BMD Northcliffe finished 3rd overall in the pointscore behind Sunshine Coast Club’s, Maroochydore and Alexandra Headlands.

For Results, Click here.

Thank you to all our age managers, assistants, officials, water safety, IRB and parents who enable our nippers to compete.

Good luck to our U14s and U15s who will go on to race at the Australian Youth Championships in April.