The Lifesaving World Championships were held in the Netherlands this year.

Approximately 4,000 athletes and officials from 40 nations together with 400 local volunteers took part in the Championships which was held in the purpose built 50m pool in Eindhoven and on the North Sea beaches of Noordwijk.

With sixteen days of competition split across the pool and the beach, the Lifesaving World Championships is the largest international lifesaving sport competition in the world. All the events are based around rescue capability and are specific to saving people’s lives.

Team GBR (Open and Youth) was made up of 12 athletes and they all fought hard to place 9^th and 7^th respectively (Open with 295 points, Youth with 410 points).

An additional 190 athletes from 20 RLSS UK Clubs competed over the masters and interclub championships.  The high octane opening ceremony was just the start of an exciting fortnight of world class competition.  World records, national records, PBs, laughter, tears and injury, were all part of the extreme highs and lows of the championships.  The pool competition was fantastic, the organisation was smooth, the results system was quick and the pool was fast.  The food village seemed hugely popular and opportunity to do a bit of sunbathing went down well.  The masters and youth interclub definitely had the worst of the weather at the beach, but fought bravely.

Over the course of the championships 27 medals, 13 National Records and 2 World Records were brought home by RLSS UK athletes.

Generally felt to be a great championship, respect must be given to the organisers, the orange army and all the officials.

The RESCUE championships will move to Adelaide in Australia for RESCUE 2018 before returning to Europe by way of Italy in 2020.

Link to highlights video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCnbJobVTRA

For all the detailed results please visit – http://www.lifesaving2016.com/en/