The Mul­laloo SLSC club has been known for its strong dom­i­na­tion in the beach arena. Many great cham­pi­ons such as Jeff David­son, Jar­rod Moon and Aaron Brinkworth have had great suc­cess at both State and National lev­els. Their coach­ing and com­pe­ti­tion abil­i­ties have played a key role in devel­op­ing the squad over the years.

With a new gen­er­a­tion of com­pe­ti­tion com­ing through the ranks, the focus is just as impor­tant. Luke Leeder has been an active mem­ber of Surf Life Sav­ing for 19 years and a part of the Mul­laloo beach squad for almost the entire time. Luke has had a coach­ing role within the squad for some time and under the care­ful guid­ance of his pre­de­ces­sors, is now Senior Beach Coach. Hav­ing spent three sea­sons on the Gold Coast com­pet­ing, being coached and rub­bing shoul­ders with some of the biggest names in the sport, Luke has been able to imple­ment the very lat­est in train­ing meth­ods and hav­ing built strong rela­tion­ships from coast to coast con­tin­ues to do so.

The Squad con­tin­ues to grow from under 15 to open ranks and is now attract­ing inter­est and new mem­ber­ships from out­side com­peti­tors. The clubs proud his­tory of cham­pion relay teams still stands with our under 17 boys nar­rowly miss­ing out on their third straight National Title – tak­ing sil­ver and then win­ning bronze in the under 19s (an age group above).

Some of our mas­ter com­peti­tors have also enjoyed great results at both State and National com­pe­ti­tions, and remain supremely com­pet­i­tive in a train­ing and com­pe­ti­tion envi­ron­ment which is great to see.

“Devel­op­ing an ath­lete is all about under­stand­ing men­tal and phys­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties within the indi­vid­ual. One must cater for this and as a coach, iden­tify and chip away in the right areas. Results don’t nec­es­sar­ily mean medals, but results will get you closer to your ulti­mate goals.”
Luke Leeder

Beach Sprints

An indi­vid­ual event where com­peti­tors sprint along a beach ‘track’ (course is set up as lanes marked on flat, sandy part of beach) towards the fin­ish line. The track lengths vary depend­ing on the age of competitors:

• 70 metres for U8 – U14 and Masters
• 90 metres for U15 – Open

Beach Relay

Teams of four mem­bers run in ‘shut­tle fash­ion’ using a piece of rub­ber hose (or sim­i­lar) as a baton, which is passed from mem­ber to mem­ber. The race is con­ducted over the same length course as the beach sprint, with the first team home with the baton declared the winner.

Beach Flags

In this event, com­peti­tors lie face down in the sand and – upon the whis­tle blast – jump to their feet, turn around and sprint before div­ing for a rub­ber baton (the ‘flag’) located in the sand. Speed, reac­tion and power to weight ratio is a very impor­tant part of being suc­cess­ful in this event. Beach flags is a knock-out event, whereby there is always one baton less than com­peti­tors per heat. Each round, one per­son is elim­i­nated with the last remain­ing per­son, declared the winner.

Track lengths for the beach flags vary depend­ing on the age of competitors:

• 15 metres for U8 – U14 and Masters
• 20 metres for U15 – Open