FEATURE
SAVING LIVES AND MAKING WAVES
Gqeberha welcomes the world’ s best lifesaving athletes this month, with South Africa hoping to make home advantage count at a championship that could help grow the sport.
By Karien Jonckheere
Sunday mornings, lifesaving drills and the promise of ice cream afterwards. That was the deal that initially enticed a nine-year-old Brent Shield into the sport, when friends introduced him to the nippers programme.
“ 30 years later I ' m still here and still motivated by the ice cream,” he jokes.
Coincidentally, it’ s also been over 30 years since South Africa last hosted the Lifesaving World Championships. Now, as Gqeberha prepares to welcome thousands of competitors and officials from across the globe from 25 November to 13 December, Shield finds himself involved in bringing the event home, this time as an athlete, coach and member of the Lifesaving South Africa organising committee.
28 www. modernathlete. co. za