Ali back for another Day as girls finally get to go the distance

Surf Life Saving Australia, October 18, 2013: Over 600 of Australia’s best surf sports endurance athletes are converging onto the southern end of the Gold Coast for this weekend’s toughest endurance Ironman race – the 14^th running of the Schick Hydro Coolangatta Gold 2013.

For the first time, the SLSA event will showcase the women over the same physically challenging 41.8km long course as the men, from Coolangatta to Broadbeach and back.

They will race for record prize-money of over $100,000 – with $25,000 up for grabs for both the men’s and women’s long course winners. The largest single day’s prize-money in Australian Surf Sports history.

Mooloolaba’s defending men’s champion Ali Day’s late entry has certainly added some last minute intrigue that goes with the drama of the event after five-time winner Caine Eckstein informed organisers that the return of the Epstein Barr virus had forced him out of a tilt at his sixth crown.

Ali-Day-Cooli-2013

Day knows he is in for one of the toughest days of his career on Sunday when he lines up trying to become only the third man in Coolangatta Gold history to defend his crown.

The 23-year-old Day announced he had recovered from a stress fracture in his foot and admitting putting in his late entry just before the close of business last Friday was “one of the scariest things he’s had to do.”

“I’m a bit scared actually. It was a strange feeling (the fact that he wasn’t going to start) and it might sound a but silly but putting that entry in late on Friday was a bit scary,” said Day.

“At the moment I’ve still got to take things day by day (with the injury) but I am doing everything I can to make sure I’m on the start line as fit as I can be come Sunday.”

Victory will put Day alongside original winner Guy Leech (1984 and 1985) and five-time champion Caine Eckstein, who defended his crowns in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

“It is hard to come back as the defending champion, it is something that I have never had to do before, it’s a totally different ball game” said Day.

“The opportunity was just too hard to knock back and hopefully I can get to Sunday and do it again but it is going to be extremely tough to defend my title. I’ll be giving it my all and I just hope I can have a good race.

“But I’m really excited to do the Gold, it’s my favourite race and is the toughest event in Surf Life Saving. It’s a good challenge for me and I’ll just have to see what happens I guess.

“I do love the long distance races and some of my favourite Ironmen have won this race, including my own coach Michael King.”

Day hasn’t got to look too far to see his main opponents.

Last year it was training partners Alex Tibbitts and Josh Minogue who shared an all-maroon and white Mooloolaba podium and while Tibbitts is overseas, Day and Minogue will be joined by fellow Mooloolaba boys Hayden White and Matt Bevilacqua.

“All the Mooloolaba boys are going really well and Josh, Hayden and Matt are all one year stronger than what they were last year and it would be great for the Mooloolaba boys to be up there all day but you can never (dismiss) guys like Nathan Smith and Hugh Dougherty,” said Day.

“Someone like Smith, who is a freak of an athlete is going to be extremely tough to beat and you can never right off Dougherty as well. They are almost identical athletes, who just go all day.”

Smith – a four-time podium finisher who has three times tasted defeat at the hands of Caine Eckstein (2008, 2009 and 2010) and once to Zane Holmes (2006) – will start as one of the favourites to take the coveted crown back to his beloved Cronulla Beach.

Victory would see the trophy return to NSW for the first time since Darren Mercer’s win for Thirroul in 1992 and before that in 1984 and 1985 when Manly’s Guy Leech won the inaugural Golds.

Tugun’s Doughertyis back in The Gold hunt for the first time in seven years and he showed he was in good touch, winning the recent four-kilometre Jacob Lollback Memorial Paddle at his beloved Yamba.

Then there is the younger brigade in two-time bronze medal finisher from 2010 and 2012 in Minogue and his training partner Bevilacqua, Smith’s training partner and fellow school-teacher Cronulla’s Hayden Allum, last year’s fourth-place getter Michael Booth and last year’s seventh-placegetter, Gold Coast-based former South Australian Sam Fuller in a 50-strong field.

Former WA Ironman and expert ski paddler Brendan Sarson is back for a four year layoff to paddle kayaks and he is certain to be at the front of the pack off the ski at Miami.

The women’s long course has attracted defending champion Brodie Moir, 2011 champion Courtney Hancock, five-time podium finisher Elizabeth Pluimers, noted endurance surf star Jordan Mercer and three-time top ten finisher Tara Coleman.

“When Nathan Smith attacked the Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Trial he showed he meant business and was ready to give The Gold a red-hot go but the decision by day to throw his hat back in the ring adds a whole new dimension to the race,” said SLSA’s Schick Hydro Coolangatta Gold spokesman Ian Hanson.

“He is a proven performer over the course on numerous occasions and was ready to take on the best of the best but this could now be the year of Nathan Smith – if he can add the Gold to his repertoire of titles it will put his name up in lights as truly one of the all-time Ironman greats.

“But he now has to contend with the Day factor – a young champion determined to go back-to-back and someone who is almost 10 years his junior.

“There is a certain pulling power about The Gold that lures back so many athletes who want to give it just one more try and with the girls doing the long course for the first time we expect the event to grow even greater in coming years.

“In the women’s race the big question is can Brodie Moir become only the second back-to-back winner after Hayley Bateup and Alicia Marriott and of course the first long course winner?

“Or will Courtney Hancock add her second Gold to her two Aussies crowns and her Series victory or can Liz Pluimers turn her previous silver and bronze medals into gold.

“It is also encouraging to see international competitors from Great Britain, New Zealand and France take up the challenge of the Schick Hydro Coolangatta Gold as the SLSA continues to build the event overseas.”

The Coolangatta Gold always receives strong support from the Queensland Government with Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games Jann Stuckey saying at the event launch that her government was proud to support the Schick Hydro Coolangatta Gold through Tourism and Events Queensland as part of a growing calendar of sporting, cultural and regional events for the region.

“The Coolangatta Gold is an iconic Australian event and considered one of the most physically challenging competitions in the world, attracting Australia’s elite Ironmen and Ironwomen to the Gold Coast each year,” Ms Stuckey said.

“Major events such as this demonstrate the Gold Coast and Queensland’s ability to host high-quality international sporting festivals as we look toward the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.”

Since the Coolangatta Gold was re-introduced onto the SLSA calendar in 2005 the men have raced the Long Course and the Women the Short Course.

However, in recent times, the growing demand for women to compete in the long course along with the men has now seen women graduate to the full distance and, coupled with an increased profile of Australia’s Ironwomen, has helped attract a major naming rights sponsor in Schick Hydro.

It has allowed SLSA to increase the overall prize-money from $65,000 in 2012 to $101,550 in 2013 – with the winners of both the men’s and women’s Long Course events to receive a winner’s purse of $25,000.

Second placegetters will each receive $7,700 and third placegetters $4,675.

When the cream of Australia’s Ironmen and Ironwomen gather on the Gold Coast for this iconic race they will each be racing for a share of $47,275 – with prize-money on offer for the top 10 finishers in the Long Course event on Sunday 20 October.

The 41.8km iconic torture course from Coolangatta to Miami (via Broadbeach) and return through North Burleigh, Burleigh Heads, Currumbin and Bilinga will be open to Elite Men and Women, Masters Men (30-39 and 40-49) and Open Team’s for Men and Mixed.

In another breakthrough the Schick Hydro Coolangatta Gold weekend will see all Short Course events (from Coolangatta to Miami and return) over 33.36km race, tomorrow, Saturday 19 October with men’s field attracting two-time Australian Ironman champion Pierce Leonard (Southport), Nutri-Grain Series podium finisher Kendrick Louis (Newport) and Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Series qualifier and this year’s Aussies runner-up Tanyn Lyndon (Northcliffe).

Elite Men and Women with a Total of $7,000 prizemoney (First $2,000; Second $1,000 and Third $500).
Under 19 men and women;
Masters Men 40-49; Over 50s; Masters Women 30-39 and Over 40s;
Open Women’s teams and;
Under 19 Teams for Men, Women and Mixed.

SCHICK-HYDRO PARTNERSHIP

The Schick Hydro one-year partnership follows the huge success of last year’s Coolangatta Gold, staged at Coolangatta for the first time in the event’s decorated history – an event which was first held in 1984 and 1985 before surfacing again in 1991 and 1992, and its successful long term arrival in 2005.

The event has become synonymous with Surf Life Saving Australia and the Gold Coast since the birth of Australia’s toughest Ironman race in the movie The Coolangatta Gold.

Since then the Coolangatta Gold has been conducted 12 times with the 2005 event including Ironwomen, Masters and Teams events for the first time.

SLSA is delighted with the arrival of Schick Hydro - Schick's latest and most advanced shaving system for men and women - as its naming rights partner in 2013.

The Schick Hydro Coolangatta Gold is supported by the Queensland Government through Tourism and Events Queensland as part of a growing calendar of sporting, cultural, business and regional events across the state.

Issued on behalf of Surf Life Saving Australia...

Ian Hanson
Hanson Media Group

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