A very successful year of competition for Clare athletes

After an exceptionally successful 2011 Surf-Lifesaving season, the Clare Water Safety members wrapped up for the winter with their annual Christmas function in the Old Ground Hotel last Friday.
On display, at the entrance, was the hugely impressive collection of trophies, which were won by the Clare surf-lifesavers throughout the year.  In total, 13 national water safety trophies are up for grabs each season across a range of disciplines and age groups. Of these, the dedicated Clare lifeguards, young and old, won an amazing 12. Tributes were made to the countless volunteers, referees, coaches and of course the dedicated athletes who made this hugely successful season possible.
Surf-lifesaving is a sport that uses the skills learned in water safety training and transfers them to a competition environment. Kids of all ages took part in the training sessions, which took place on White Strand and Spanish point beaches, under the watchful eye of the highly enthusiastic coaches. The nippers, ages 8-14, take to the seas on their rescue boards, swim and run in a number of fun events at a local, provincial and national level. Pitched against the best young lifesavers from all over Ireland, the Clare nippers, both male and female, won the provincial titles and also went on to win the national nipper titles for the second year running.
Not to be outdone by the young nippers, the Clare juniors, age 14-18, in a fantastic display of fitness and perseverance, while battling against the strong winds, heavy rain and high seas, these talented young lifeguards also won national titles, adding another three trophies to the already expanding Clare winnings.
Throughout the summer, the senior surf-lifesavers, ages 16+, train regularly together, sometimes twice and three times a day regardless of the weather conditions. This is all with one goal in mind, to win the esteemed President’s Trophy. The President’s Trophy was presented to Irish Water Safety by President Sean T O’Ceallaigh in 1950 and to this day is awarded to the best overall county team in all disciplines of the surf-lifesaving events, both pool and beach competitions. The senior Clare men took both the pool and the beach trophies. The Clare senior ladies, after a brilliant display of pool competition, taking the senior pool trophy, were narrowly beaten by the Donegal ladies’ team for the coveted senior ladies’ beach trophy. Nonetheless, the strong performance of the Clare senior men’s team in all competitions gave them enough points to take the President’s Trophy.
However, these Clare lifesavers are not only recognised as the best in Ireland but had huge success internationally. Clare athletes took seven places of the 10 available on the Irish junior lifesaving team that travelled to Copenhagen for the European Junior Lifesaving Championships. Bernard Cahill and Rory Sexton won a European bronze medal in the board rescue event.
At senior level, Clare athletes filled six of the 12 available places on the Irish senior lifesaving team who travelled to Alicante, Spain, for the Senior European Championships.  Rated as one of the best performances to date by an Irish team, in total, 14 European medals were won, 11 of which were won by the men from Clare. This fantastic performance moved the Irish Lifesavers up to sixth in the European rankings.  Dylan Barrett and Oisín McGrath had gold medal performances. Bernard Cahill took a bronze medal in the esteemed iron man event and the Irish taplin relay (four of the team’s strongest athletes put forward to race their best event) took second place. 
On account of their effort and dedication to this ever-growing sport, Clare Surf-lifesavers have put Irish water safety on the map and are recognised as some of the strongest and quickest lifeguards in Europe.