LITTLE FAT KID" RETIRES AS FLAGS GIANT
March 21: It has been a long journey for the ‘little fat kid from Stanwell Park on the NSW south coast.
Yesterday that journey came to an end at Kurrawa Beach on the Gold Coast when Simon Harris won a record eighth Australian Surf Life Saving Championships gold medal in the open beach flags.
Victory came on the same stretch of sand where the ‘little fat kid' won his first Aussies title in 2000.
It was a stretch which on Friday claimed the life of 19-year-old Queenscliff Ironman Saxon Bird, who was remembered earlier in the day at a moving memorial tribute which attracted 5000 people to Kurrawa Beach.
"Compared with what happened on Friday this is nothing," said Harris, who was quick to put his history making race into perspective.
"This was just a race...we are chasing a bit of hose out there to see who's the fastest bloke over 20 metres...but Saxon lost his life out there."
But as lifesavers from all over Australia gathered on finals day, with heavy hearts and many of them lost in the haze of losing one of their own, Harris and local hero Melissa Howard from Kurrawa (who won her sixth Australian crown) gave the large crowd something to celebrate.
Harris is one of the movement's great characters and arrived onto the beach very much the sentimental favouite going in to a finals day normally reserved for the Ironmen and Ironwomen.
But with water events cancelled because of the closed beaches on the Gold Coast it was Harris' time to shine for the eighth time.
At 35 and these days a star of the all-powerful Northcliffe club, he will retire as Australia's greatest-ever beach flags exponent.
The king of surf lifesaving's dynamic event sank to his knees in the sand and was hugged by his wife, former Ironwoman legend Kristy after beating great rival Paul Cracroft-Wilson to the final piece of hose - a prize Harris refused to give up that will be proudly presented to his mother Gail, who already has the previous seven.
If he kept going his mum would one day possibly end up with enough hose to water her whole garden but Harris says he doesn't have any interest in going on.
"I'm 35 years old, it's too hard to get up in the morning when your ankles are aching and your knees are hurting," he said.
Harris declined to pick out any of his record eight victories - six of which have come at Kurrawa - as more important than any other.
"They're all good," he said.
"I won my first one 10 years at the same beach. I know the Kurrawa guys call it their home beach but I reckon this is my home beach.
"I live only 500 metres up the road and this is a dream come true."
It was fitting Harris's final gold medal came against Cracroft-Wilson, the New Zealander who competes for Kurrawa and was the last man to beat Harris in an Aussies final, at Scarborough in 2007.
Cracroft-Wilson even suggested afterwards that they do it one more time next year but Harris was emphatic with his answer: "No, it's over!"
Even as Simon Harris celebrated his eighth gold medal, there was another exceptional athlete aiming to beat that record.
Kurrawa's Melissa Howard progressed comfortably to her sixth open women's flags championship today.
She is as dominant as Harris and with six Australian titles thinks she has many good years ahead.
"I have the most in the women and I can only keep going and beat the most in the males as well," she said.
"I give the guys a bit of a run for their money in training, including Paul Cracroft-Wilson and Ben Mispelhorn who won the under-19s, and it always feels good when I can have a good turn on them."
Howard, who has now won five Australian open titles in a row, had to beat off the challenge of Trigg Island pair Alysse Hogan and Holly Daniels as the competition was down to the final three.
In the end she did it easily, even finding time to smile broadly as she swooped on the final flag with silver medallist Hogan metres behind.