KEY POINTS:
Mairangi Bay's top surf athletes regained their open men's board rescue title on the first day of the New Zealand Surf Lifesaving Championships at Gisborne yesterday.
New Zealand representative surf-swim specialist Michael Buck reached the buoy line well in front of the other top contenders, which left defending national board race champion Kevin Morrison the difficult task of paddling through a 2m surf.
The Auckland pair's great threat came from the defending champions, Glenn Anderson and Matt Sutton from Midway but a big wave set gave the challengers a 20m lead albeit not directly in front of their finish gate.
"Losing the title in New Plymouth last year was a motivating factor in our preparation for today's final," said Buck.
"It was great to win again."
The pair only just made the final after a poor return to the beach in their semi, but it did provide them with valuable tactical information to apply in the final. The race was made tougher by a southerly drift.
Buck will also use the thrill of regaining the board rescue title as motivation for his specialist event, the open men's surf race today.
Mount Maunganui have the early lead at the championships.
With 17-year-old Mount schoolgirl Chelsea Maples taking out the under-19 and open women's beach sprint double, and the club winning all three female relays, Mount have a six-point lead into the second day over Gisborne hosts Midway.
Maples caused the biggest upset of the day in the open race, heading home her world champion clubmate, Holly Moczydlowski, with Midway's Rebecca Wright in second.
Fitzroy's Paul Cracroft-Wilson collected his third consecutive men's beach sprint title, just holding off the New Plymouth Old Boys pairing of Ben Willis and Gareth Goodin.
Anderson eased to his third run-swim-run title, heading off clubmate Mike Janes and Buck.
Anderson said Midway were primed to wrest the Allan Gardner Trophy back off Red Beach.
- NZPA
