IRONMEN SLOWED BY QUARTER-FINAL DELAY

April 7: Two of the favourites for Sunday's open Ironman championship at the DHL 2011 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships will have to wait until Saturday for their chance to qualify for the glamour event's semi-finals.

Four-time champion Ky Hurst and Coolangatta Gold king Caine Eckstein, both of the Kurrawa club, were on the line for the start of their quarter-final today when officials decided to postpone the race because it was too close to the carnival's 4pm cut-off time.

Competitors in the only undecided quarter-final will now have to race on Saturday as the water events at the championships have a lay day tomorrow.

Carnival officials are now considering running both semi-finals on Sunday morning, with the final to be raced later in the day.

Other open Ironman favourites such as three-time winner Shannon Eckstein (Northcliffe), two-time champion Pierce Leonard (Northcliffe) and Tugun's Hugh Dougherty all made it safely through their quarter-finals.

Surf Life Saving Australia general manager surf sports David Thompson said clubs were advised in December and March that the competition time was 8am to 4pm and competition would cease at 4pm.

"This is being done for the welfare of competitors, officials and workforce, and safety is our absolute priority," he said.

"SLSA will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety and welfare of everybody involved in the championships."

Eckstein, who cruised into fourth place in his quarter-final, looked in prime form, as did Leonard whose form during the championships so far has been faultless.

SUPERMUM CONTINUES WINNING RUN

History was made on the sand when City of Perth's Alison O'Toole won her seventh consecutive open women's 2km beach run this morning.

It is the most consecutive wins by any athlete in any event in Aussies history.

O'Toole breaks the record she shared with Redhead's Michael Jones, who won six straight open beach flags titles between 1983 and 1988.

O'Toole amazed medical authorities in 2009 when she won her fifth title just three weeks after giving birth to her first child, Tighe.

WA's supermum arrived on the Gold Coast on Tuesday and will fly back to Perth tonight to relieve her family of babysitting duties.

She faced a major challenge from Ironwoman Hayley Bateup, who decided to contest the 2km run while recuperating from a shoulder operation, but O'Toole wore her down and was a clear winner.

"It feels amazing, a big sense of relief," O'Toole said of her record-breaking win.

"I wasn't feeling the greatest leading up to the event, with a lot of nerves and people's expectations resting on your shoulders but it is an amazing feeling to cross the line and finish ahead of everyone else."

O'Toole said the challenge from Bateup, who closely tracked the champion along much of the course, made today's win the toughest of her seven.

"It played on my mind the whole way, and it has played on my mind since I heard through the media that she was planning to do the race," she said.

"Hayley is an awesome competitor, she's extremely determined, she hates being beaten like any of us so I really knew that when she said she was going to do the race she was really serious and she would have put in the work for it.

"I kept looking over my shoulder and kept seeing her and by the time I came to the fourth lap I could see a bit of a gap but I thought she probably still had something there to pass me so I was running scared the whole way."

O'Toole said she would not rule out trying for an eighth straight title but is also keen to have a second child in the next 12 months.

Tugun's Steve Madden successfully defended his own two-kilometre run title, won at Kurrawa last year, re-enforcing his continued comeback from a serious bike accident, while training for triathlon.

In November 2008 Madden was 100 metres from his home at the end of a long cycle ride when he was struck by a car and knocked into the gutter.

He had serious knee and head injuries that have kept him out of competition for a long period but yesterday he was able to put that behind him.

Earlier in the week Northcliffe lifesavers Damien Moffrey and Trent Rowe wrote their names into the history books also, as members of the Northcliffe club's Champion Patrol Team for the tenth consecutive win.

OLYMPIAN JOINS IN ‘BONDI RESCUE'

The Bondi girls have added their own episode to "Bondi Rescue", winning a dramatic open women's rescue tube rescue final ahead of NSW Champions Swansea Belmont with Northcliffe taking the bronze.

The Bondi team had an international flavour, with the winning quartet including Argentine Olympic breaststroke swimmer Liliana Guiscardo, who has been in Australia only two months, and American Andrea Miller.

Powered by the powerful swimming of Guiscardo, who swam the 100m breaststroke at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the team came from fifth to first then stumbled one metre short of the finish line but regathered themselves to score a narrow win.

Meanwhile in other major finals action on day three of open competition:

• Mooloolaba opened the day with the first of the major open men's medals of the day in the board relay final, with the team of Cam Cole, Dane Windshuttle and Matt Poole producing a dominant performance to take the gold from Tugun and Northcliffe.
• The club's open ski relay team of Ironwomen Alicia Marriott, Madi Rose and Allira Richardson gatecrashed the gold when they came from behind ton upset Northcliffe, Manly and early leaders Torquay.
• Manly's Trent Klousal swam the race of his life to score a comfortable win in the under 19 belt final from Wanda's Alex Clarke with Riley McGregor (Northcliffe) in third, joining Manly's former Australian Swim team stars Scott Miller (1991), Simon Upton (1987) and Robbie Williams (1974) who have all won the title. Williams, the Manly LSC president, was on Klousal's reel in yesterday's final.
• Northcliffe's Tanyn Lyndon, Max Beattie and Callum Booth overcame some tactical errors to win an exciting Under-19 board relay in a sprint finish from Terrigal with the fast finishing Currumbin Vikings third.
• While there was an anxious wait for the Northcliffe foursome of Shannon Eckstein, Dev Lahey, Pierce Leonard and New Zealander Dan Moodie before they were declared gold medallists in a tight Open surf teams finish over Mooloolaba and Cronulla. It was Eckstein's second gold after his win in the Restricted (over 24) surf race.

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