News
Almost Time For Action
Friday, 16 September 2022The hard work is done and it’s now just time for finetuning, packing and dialling in the last few details for the Black Fins and Junior Black Fins. With September quickly disappearing before us, the good news is the Surf Lifesaving World Champs are almost here.
The Black Fins fly out this Sunday with the Junior Black Fins following a few days later on Tuesday with the action kicking off on September 27.
With that in mind, here are a few key things to get you prepared to support our athletes as they take on the world:
- The Junior Black Fins are the reigning world champions while Australia won the open title at the last world champs.
- The programmes are split between locations for the Open and Junior competition.
- The open teams will race at the pool first and then head to the beach to complete their world championships.
- The junior teams will race at the beach first and then finish off their world championships at the pool.
- Daylight saving starts in NZ on September 25 with clocks going forward one hour.
- Italy is also observing Daylight saving.
- The time difference between the two countries on September 27 is 11 hours – NZ is 11 hours ahead of Italy.
- So that means when the first event starts on September 27 at 9am Italian time it will be 8pm NZ time.
- Riccione is in Northern Italy in the Province of Rimini. It’s currently autumn and temperatures are still warm, in the early 20s by 9am.
- The beach is predominantly flat with not much chance of big swell but enough of a wave to be dangerous for close finishes.
- Both the open and junior teams’ pool rescue swimmers have recently been to the Aussie Pool titles where they snapped up Australian records and titles.
- The European teams pride themselves on their prowess in the pool, expect this to be a hotly contested battle.
- The programmes for the two divisions can be found here - Open Programme | Youth Programme
About High Performance SLS Sport:
The Vision for our HP Programmes is to Create Champions and Role Models that Inspire New Zealanders.
The Mission is to Maximise the potential of NZ lifesaving sport athletes to achieve excellent and inspiring performances at pinnacle events.
New Zealand is a powerhouse of competitive lifesaving, competing and winning internationally across pool, beach and IRB events. Our National Teams include the Black Fins, Junior Black Fins (pool, ocean & beach), Black Props (IRBs) and Oar Blacks (Surf Boats).
The pinnacle event is the Life Saving World Championships, held every two years. New Zealand is the current IRB & Youth World Champions and have previously won the Open championship in 1998, 2012, 2014 & 2016. Many of our athletes also represent New Zealand in Commonwealth and Olympic sports.
SLSNZ High Performance Programmes are working collaboratively toward the vision, sharing and building on a strong and positive culture.
About the Lifesaving World Championships:
Every two years the world’s top lifeguards converge on a selected location to compete for the coveted World Championship title. With the postponement of the 2020 World Championships, due to Covid-19, the 2022 World Championships are finally being held in Riccione, Italy.
Open and Junior national teams will contest events in the pool and at the beach, accumulating points as a team across all the events.
Whilst Kiwis are accustomed to seeing lifeguards taking part in rescues at beaches, in Europe – in land-locked counties in particular – lifeguards perform the majority of their rescues at pools. The two facets come together at the World Championships to showcase their lifeguarding skills in teams and help decide the best of the best.
