World Life Saving Championships

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World Life Saving Championships

LOCAL Life Saving identities, George Mission and his wife Janet Kolotelo from Inverloch, have been appointed to officiate at the World Life Saving Championships “Rescue14” in September, at Montpellier, France.
Both are involved in local clubs Inverloch, Cape Paterson and Waratah Beach.
Janet, a theatre nurse at Wonthaggi Hospital, has been officiating now for 15 years since George introduced her to one of his passions, life saving.
Having begun his life saving career at Cape Patterson in 1963, this year George celebrated fifty two years of involvement and 45 years of competition officiating.
George Mission has been appointed to the Appeals Committee, the final avenue that competitors have to put their case forward if they have been disqualified during competition.
To be appointed to this committee George says one must be a dinosaur, and after having competed and officiated at state, national and international level himself for many years, he says that he certainly does fall into the dinosaur category.
The committee is best explained to be like the Supreme Court; members must have a full understanding of the thousands of rules that are involved with such a competition, but also have a very open mind to the offence at hand.
Many of the world’s top life saving competitors are professional and being disqualified and not winning events could have a dramatic affect on any sponsorship that they may receive.
Ms Kolotelo has been appointed as starter/ check starter for the International Open and Youth Teams events at the championships.
She is the only female ever to be appointed to such a position and was first appointed to the role in Egypt at Rescue 2008.
Ten Thousand athletes will face the starter’s gun over the two weeks of competition.
Nick Leman from the Inverloch SLSC will compete in the Open 2km Run.
As reported in The Star on August 5 Leman was named Surf Life Saving Victoria’s 2014 Athlete of the Year and now has his chance to put his name on the world stage.
Mr Mission says the locals and holiday makers who use patrolled beaches should feel very comfortable knowing that South Gippsland has some of the highest qualified volunteers monitoring their water safety.
There are up to two hundred thousand drownings around the world each year.
In 2006 forty seven thousand children drowned in Vietnam alone.
These unbelievable numbers which mostly occur in developing nations are slowly being decreased.
Anyone interested in being involved in any of the local life saving clubs in any capacity, just not as a life savers should make contact with the clubs through the Life Saving Victoria.
George Mission has not regretted being dragged off to join Cape Paterson fifty two years ago.
He says the journey has been incredible and is still continuing.

Incredible journey: husband and wife team George Mission and Janet Kolotelo are officiating at the World Life Saving Championships in Montpellier, France in September.

Incredible journey: husband and wife team George Mission and Janet Kolotelo are officiating at the World Life Saving Championships in Montpellier, France in September.

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Posted by on Aug 26 2014. Filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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