Local lifeguards Lowri Davies and Dafydd Nicholls of Poppit Sands Surf Lifesaving Club and Carys Thomas of Newport SLSC recently took part in the 2016 Lifesaving World Championships in Holland along with colleagues from Mumbles SLSC.
The three of them enjoyed two days of competition at the swimming pool in Eindhoven then travelled to Noordwiik for three days of intense beach competitions. Lowri Dafydd and Carys who spent their summer as lifeguards for the RNLI on North Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion beaches all agreed that it was an amazing experience competing on an international level against lifeguards from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa and all over the world with over a hundred competitors in each event.
Last year the three of them travelled to Spain to compete for the Welsh Team at the 2015 Atlantic Games where Wales won the overall Surf life Saving Competition.
This year Dafydd was 13th overall in his Surf Swim heat and 12th in the Male Taplin Relay. Lowri and Carys managed 7th in the Female Taplin Relay and 12th in the Tube Rescue.
Lowri finished in 14th place in her Surf Ski race having had to qualify through heats, quarter and semi before reaching the final. Carys who also qualified for the final through her heats came in 12th overall in the Surf Swim race.
All three of these local youngsters are all round athletes who carry out a very important role along the beaches of West Wales over the summer months.
Lowri and Carys admit to leading incredibly busy lives and pack as much as they can into their week with both their sporting and academic commitments
Lowri who is 16 years old is currently in year 12 at Ysgol y Preseli studying Biology, Medical Science, Sport and plays for the School Hockey and Netball Team and has been a Young Sports Embassador for the past 3 years.
Her favourite discipline in Surf Lifesaving is the Surf Ski and she also finds time to train with Seren Dwr K1 Sprint Team in Cardiff. In her spare time she is a volunteer for the NHS and RNLI and also works in the Cafe at Poppit Sands. Her plan is to carry on with biology in university and gain work experience whilst travelling the world.
Carys is a very strong swimmer and swims for the Pembrokeshire County performance squad which includes training in excess of 20 hours a week.
She also play hockey for her local club, as well as for her school and is member of the netball & cross country teams. She studied Biology, Mathematics and Geography at A level as well as the Welsh Baccalaureate and she also hopes to go to university next year to start a degree course in civil engineering and she too would love to travel after university to as she puts it” experience the world”.
With this sort of impressive attitude and wonderful zest for life the world is their oyster!