Golden form at the surf lifesaving nationals

Corrin and teammate Sophie Petro, left, were stoked with their board rescue win.

Midway started to climb the overall points tally yesterday at the New Zealand surf lifesaving championships at Mount Maunganui scoring gold in board rescue, run-swim-run and surf canoe.

The club’s climb was launched by four more gold medal performances yesterday, two of them involving one of their stars Olivia Corrin.

Late in the afternoon Dawson Building Midway had moved from seventh at the end of Day 1 up to fourth out of the 47 participating clubs.

Jacqueline Kennedy and Alice Sparks got Midway’s tally started on Thursday afternoon with gold in the under-19 women’s double ski, and Tyron Evans and Angus Blair added another gold in the men’s u19 tube rescue.

Ella Sutton and Sophie Petro added a bronze in the u19 women’s double ski.

Day 2 yesterday started with a clean sweep for the club’s u19 surf canoe team who won all three of their short course rounds to take gold — Austin Fergus, William Matthews, Jack Searle and Sam Gaddum.

“They smoked their second and third rounds,” was how their coach Andrew Gaddum described the youngsters strong performance.

They will race three rounds of the long course canoe today, aiming for double gold.

Corrin did the swimming and Petro the board paddling for the duo to win the gold in the open women’s board rescue final.

The pair won their heat, their semi final, then the big one, and won it well, by a solid margin.

Corrin stepped up a little later to win the open women’s run-swim-run title, beating fellow Black Fin Molly Shivnan from Omanu for the gold.

She won it by about 30 metres.

Midway’s Blair and William Matthews followed by adding silver in the u19 men’s board rescue.

The medal rush for Midway continued with a gold to Blair in the u19 run-swim-run, clubmate Tyron Evans scored the bronze.

In other handy local performances yesterday, Midway’s Yahni Brown finished seventh in the u17 run-swim-run, Sutton and Emily Petro were fourth in the u17 women’s board rescue, Cory Taylor and Blair were ninth in the men’s board rescue final.

Wainui’s best result came with Mako Fukushima-Hall who made the final of the u15 boys diamond, after sixths yesterday in the heats and semifinals.

These were the results to hand when the Herald went to print last night.

Mid-afternoon yesterday Midway were fourth on the points table.

Mount Maunganui were on 67 points, East End from Taranaki on 41, Omanu from the Bay of Plenty on 39 and Midway 31.

In terms of points for gold medals won Midway had 26 points, equal with East End, and not far behind the Mount of 33.

The Gisborne club’s medal chances rise again today with the surf races and board relays.

Mid-afternoon yesterday Kaiaponi Farms Waikanae and Riversun Wainui had yet to register points in the championships, but that would almost certainly change for Waikanae when the beach sprint and beach flags events have concluded.