Leisurelink claim victory in LSV Pool Lifeguard Challenge

The Geelong Leisurelink team has been named Life Saving Victoria’s ‘Pool Lifeguard’ champions in an energetic challenge of lifeguarding skill and teamwork at North Melbourne Recreation Centre.

Held on Tuesday 22nd March, the annual LSV challenge saw 18 teams, representing 30 aquatic facilities, put their rescue and response skills to the test in the competition, which aimed to challenge the lifeguards’ abilities in a practical, safe and fun environment.

Teams responded to a series of simulated scenarios, including dislocated shoulders, spinal incidents, CPR, head injuries, argumentative parents and seizures.

The scenarios were designed to not only test the technical skills of the individual team members, but also their overall teamwork, communication and incident response capabilities.

Event manager Andy Dennis said that the intention was for the competitors to expect the unexpected, explaining “scenarios that competing lifeguards were faced with were difficult but realistic; they could easily occur at their own aquatic facilities.

“We also introduced a variety of twists and complications throughout the different scenarios, in addition to the initial incident.”

To test stamina and general water skills, the teams took to the pool for race events, including obstacle, rescue tube and manikin relays. Each member of each team also completed a line throw.”

The event scenarios were judged by accredited LSV Trainers, who were able to provide immediate feedback on development opportunities to the participants following each scenario.

The scoring was heavily weighted towards the scenarios, as well as the theory paper, with the race events accounting for a smaller percentage of the overall score.

At the end of the event, Leisurelink finished first in a very close run race with a score of 305.5, followed by Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre in second on 286 and Glen Eira Sports and Aquatic Centre in third with 283.5 points. For the first time six teams cracked the 280 point mark with Yarra Leisure (4th), AquaPulse (5th) and Casey RACE (6th) all passing the score.

Images: Leisurelink's winning team (top) and an event scenario at the challenge (below).

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