Two athletes who represented New Zealand together in junior swimming have made their debuts as newly selected Black Fins surf lifesavers in a major international competition.
Zoe Crawford and Talitha McEwan won events and set records at the German Cup, an international pool rescue competition held in Warendorf in late November.
The Black Fins are the country’s premier surf lifesaving team.
In October, after competing as Junior Black Fins, where McEwan was briefly co-captain and Crawford had achieved a junior world record, the pair was elevated to the senior team.
Crawford, 18, says: “Being called up into the open squad was pretty cool; it’s been a big dream of mine since I was a little kid. It’s such a cool environment. Since there’s only eight of us, it’s quite a tight-knit group.”
McEwan, 17, from Mt Maunganui, acknowledged the step up to senior level after having been named co-captain of the Junior Black Fins just over a month beforehand. “I was a bit nervous, as I’m still a youth, but I was really excited. It’s such a good team, and everyone’s so friendly.”
Both had also set New Zealand records at the junior world surf lifesaving championships in Italy last year as Junior Black Fins, with Crawford winning a silver medal in the 50m manikin tow race.
But the German Cup, which ended on November 25, was the pair’s first senior team outing. The cup serves as both that country’s national championship and an international team competition between the world’s top eight nations to test the skills of surf lifeguards.
As with the juniors in Italy, New Zealand placed second overall at the Cup.
Crawford broke two U19 New Zealand records, in the 100m manikin carry and 200m super lifesaver, and McEwan joined her in the 4 x 50m obstacle relay winning team. (The manikin carry requires a swimmer to dive into the pool wearing fins and a tube, swim 50m to collect a 65kg manikin and then carry it back to the finish as quickly as possible).
Tanya Hamilton, Surf Lifesaving New Zealand’s high performance manager said the team performed “exceptionally well with intense races, personal bests, and a number of New Zealand records.”
For Crawford there was pride. “I was pretty stoked with my results – the body held up quite well.”
She and McEwan started their representative sporting journey together, in swimming, first for New Zealand at the 2019 State Teams swimming championships, Australia’s pinnacle short course age group competition. Both also held national age group swimming titles.
So did Molly Shivnan, who was on that 2019 swim team and also competed in Germany for the Black Fins. With Madison Kidd gaining a New Zealand open 100m carry record of 52.61 seconds, all four female Black Fins finished in the top 12.
Before the senior hitout in Germany, Crawford and McEwan competed at the swimming Junior Pan Pacific championships in Hawaii and then as Junior Black Fins at the World Championships in Italy.
New Zealand’s placing in the juniors led to the creation of another event, the Battle of the Tasman, a new four-day competition between New Zealand and Australian surf lifesaving.
It was held for the first time, in Queensland in late August, with McEwan placing top two in most event but Crawford had withdrawn because of separate demands of hockey.
That month she had been on top lifesaving form, having notched a junior world record at the Australian Surf Lifesaving Pool Rescue Championship in the 100m manikin tow, clocking 57.14 seconds, down from 59.19 seconds. Should she cut her time again by that much she would go under the 55.40 seconds world record.
“I looked at the board and was, like, ‘oh wow’,” said Crawford.” I knew the world junior record was quite close. I just broke it down to the processes and what I had to nail in that race which was the underwater on the way down and the breathing on the way back.”
Clearly, it worked. She also broke two Australasian records and a further three New Zealand ones.
However, in swimming, an experience after one national team trip caused the pair to consider whether to continue in that sport.
Both had been part of Swimming New Zealand’s national age programme before being selected for the 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Hawaii. Due to Covid-19, it was the first opportunity to compete outside New Zealand since the state team’s competition in Australia in 2019. Both also competed in a tri series against two Australian teams in New Zealand last year.
But McEwan declined selection for the next tri series, in 2023, and Crawford immediately withdrew her name from the national age programme after returning from Hawaii.
“I didn’t have the best experience over there, personally,” Crawford says. “I didn’t like how they were treating the athletes. Comments some coaches said over there didn’t make the swimmers feel the best, about how we race and how we didn’t prepare well enough, that we weren’t taking it seriously, that we were just there for fun.
“I was there to race, and to race well. So, I didn’t want anything to do with the national age programme after that.”
Crawford decided to take a step back from swimming to ‘find the love for the sport’ again, went back to hockey and continued with surf lifesaving.
McEwan, however, said when she returned from Hawaii, her family paid for a sports psychologist to deal with associated issues while she continued swimming.
“I was at my lowest point. I didn’t know what to do – he gave me lots of tasks to do, I wrote a journal, and he helped me focus on positive things.”
Three months later she placed third in the 10km at swimming’s open water nationals.
(Crawford meanwhile placed third at nationals in another sport, captaining the premier hockey team at Westlake Girls High. Her school also won this year’s Auckland Premier League).
McEwan went under the qualifying standard for the Junior World Open Water Championships in 2022, however she couldn’t travel because of Covid restrictions.
Her decision to persist with swimming has paid off.
Just before she made the Black Fins German Cup team, McEwan announced she is moving to the United States in August on a swimming scholarship with Florida Atlantic University.
Many of her US team mates also compete in surf lifesaving.
“They are still allowing me to do surf,” she says. “As long as I keep them in the loop, or if I make Worlds, they’ll let me fly back. It’s one of the reasons why I picked them.” She might study psychology.
Crawford will pursue sport and recreation at Auckland University of Technology, majoring in management. She’ll drop hockey and, like McEwan, hopes to be selected again to compete at next year’s lifesaving World Championships on the Gold Coast next August.
