Hatton grabs triple Australian surf gold
Sunday 22 March 2009, 9:44AM
By Surf Life Saving New Zealand
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North Shore paddler Teneale Hatton scooped triple gold on the third day of the Australian surf lifesaving championships in Perth overnight.
The 18-year-old Orewa club member, competing for Australian club Kurrawa, comfortably defended the under-19 ski race title she won last year, heading home good friend and clubmate Rachel Clarke in the final.
Hatton and fellow New Zealander Madison Boon helped Kurrawa’s under-19 women’s taplin team to victory, along with Australian Briana Nelson, and she was also in Kurrawa’s open women’s ski relay team that won gold.
That relay-winning team included ironwoman champions Hayley Bateup and Terri Sullivan, who will now be Hatton’s rivals in the open women’s ski race final.
Clarke, who won the open and under-19 ironwoman double at the New Zealand championships in Gisborne last week, helped Kurrawa’s second team to a bronze medal in the under-19 taplin.
There was further success in the under-19 women’s ranks, with Mount Maunganui’s Chelsea Maples snatching a bronze in the beach flags...
Maples, 19, finished behind Hayley Wyper (Burleigh Heads) and long-time rival Elly Graf (Cronulla) who are expected to be her main competition in the beach sprint.
Taranaki sprint gun Paul Cracroft-Wilson narrowly missed holding both New Zealand and Australian open flags titles in the same year, losing to seven-time champion Simon Harris (Northcliffe) in the final.
Cracroft-Wilson also finished second to Harris last year, after dethroning the Queensland champion in the 2007 final. Hamilton firefighter Morgan Foster was fourth in the flags final.
Meanwhile, four-time New Zealand ironman champion Daniel Moodie has qualified for the ironman semifinals, with the Hawke’s Bay athlete joining an illustrious cast of Australian stars like Dean Mercer, Zane Holmes and Shannon Eckstein.
Moodie was in the Northcliffe `B’ team that took silver in the surf teams race behind the Northcliffe `A’ side, which included Holmes, Eckstein, Nathan Smith and Pierce Leonard.
Midway’s Boon has also made the final of the under-19 women’s ironman, an event she was leading until the final sprint up the beach last year.