Surfing safari for successful Monash students
The TeamMONASH surfers at Cabarita
TeamMONASH achieved a podium finish at the recent Australian University Championships surfing competition, improving on last year’s result by an impressive five places.
Captain Dan Norrie led the University’s largest ever team of seven to second place overall, ranking second in the women’s competition and third in the men’s, despite some challenging conditions on the final day of the championships.
Southern Cross University took out top honours at the event, held at Cabarita Beach, NSW in late June.
Dan praised the efforts of the team, some of whom were very new to the sport.
“It was a big team effort with everybody's points contributing to our strong final result,” said Dan.
“Camilla Glasby placed third in the women’s longboard event, Nimrod Eren made the semi-finals of the men’s longboard and we came third in the surf tag-team event.
“Also, a number of our surfers only just missed out on getting through to the finals in the bodyboard and shortboard events.
“One of the highlights of the event was the amazing effort put in by Thomas Alomes who made it through to the second round, despite only learning how to surf on the trip, and surfing with a learner plate on his wetsuit.”
Dan said the result was particularly impressive as the waves were large and messy on the final day.
“A big drift current pulled surfers 500 metres down the beach from the point. They had to hop out and run back up the beach to get their next wave.”
The Monash squad continued their surfing experience with a team-building trip during University holidays to explore some famous surf breaks along the east coast, including Port Macquarie, Byron Bay, Lennox Head, Noosa and the ‘superbank’ in Coolangatta.