Gold Coast Life Saving competition

Due to a planned trip to the Gold Coast and Byron Bay I was unable to make the lawn bowling field trip for this class.  With that being said I did have the opportunity to observe a Lifeguard surf saving competition while at the beach in the Gold Coast.  My first reaction was that I was shocked to see that something of this sort even existed.  Back at home I live on the beach and I have never witnessed or heard of anything like this.  After observing for about ten minutes I realized what phenomenal athletes these young men actually were.  The competition consisted of running on the beach, using a surfboard to paddle on their knees in the water, lifting some heavy objects, and then finally saving an inflatable human in the ocean.  On that specific day the waves were huge and the current was so strong that there were not many people even swimming in the ocean.  Even so these young men were finishing this course in a very short amount of time.  Honestly before witnessing this I thought to myself how can this be considered a sport it is a lifeguard competition.  When I was leaving the beach I was kicking myself for making those comments.  These guys were specimens and phenomenal athletes that could most likely compete in any of the major sports.  Yet again I was exposed to another new sport in Australia that turned out to be very interesting and entertaining.