Challenge: Tom Penney prepares for training this week.
By Cherie Donnellan
FIVE LIFESAVERS from the Surf Coast and Bellarine Peninsula will battle Los Angeles counterparts in California next month.
Anglesea’s Tom Penney said representing Victoria in the Wieland Shield competition was a “big honour”.
Mr Penney won a place on the state team after consistently placing in the top two in a series of summer competitions.
The 25-year-old architecture student said he had spent “months” preparing for the event but confessed the Surf Coast’s “particularly cold winter” had made training a challenge.
“It’s been quite different, trying to do the training in the middle of winter that we would normally be doing in summer.
“It’s been hard having to get up and run or swim at 6am in the cold but the team has been working hard.”
Mr Penney said the LA team’s “great training program” could provide a lesson for the Victorians.
“They have paid lifeguards because they basically have a tourist season all-year-round.
“I think our voluntary service is very much a part of Australian culture but it’ll be good to see how the professionals work.”
The Victorian team will compete in the Wieland Shield from August 3 to 4.
The biennial event was conceived at Melbourne’s 1956 Olympic Games as a way to build camaraderie and exchange ideas between Californian and Victorian lifesavers.
