Success for Quilter, Dawson

GOLDEN GIRL: Laura Quilter (centre) with her gold medal for the 50m manikin carry at the Orange Cup pool competition in the Netherlands. At left is her New Zealand teammate, Lyall Bay’s Samantha Lee, who won the silver medal. Picture supplied

GISBORNE surf lifesavers Laura Quilter and Chris Dawson have had a successful two days competing at the Orange Cup pool competition in the Netherlands.

Wainui club member Quilter finished in the top three in all four of her individual races, taking gold and a New Zealand record (34.66 seconds) in the 50-metre manikin carry. She was within 0.3 of a second of the world record set this year.

She won silver in the in the 100m rescue medley and 200m obstacle race (behind New Zealand teammate Samantha Lee from Lyall B ay in both races), as well as bronze in the 100m manikin carry with fins.

Midway club member Chris Dawson’s best individual result came in the 200m super lifesaver, where he finished fourth.

In team events, he and Andy McMillan, Andrew Trembath and Steve Kent won gold in the men’s 200m obstacle relay in 1min 0.26sec.

Dawson and the same three teammates were third in the men’s 4x50m rescue medley relay.

“The body felt great,” Dawson said.

“Now I have a week to fine-tune things for a good hit-out next weekend.”

Quilter was happy with her results, especially considering the heavy travel load before the competition.

“We arrived in Amsterdam on Friday morning after over 30 hours of travelling and began racing less than 24 hours after arriving in Eindhoven,” she said.

“Normally teams arrive earlier to give their bodies a chance to get used to the time difference, but I enjoyed the challenge of having such a short turn-around.”

The New Zealand team will stay in Eindhoven training till tomorrow, when they leave for Warendorf, Germany, for the German Cup.

Seventeen countries took part in the Orange Cup competition.