A University of Sheffield lifesaver finished third at a local Yorkshire lifesaving competition, earning herself a medal in the process and almost qualifying for the National Championships.
Biomedical Science student, King Yee Cheung, competed in the individual category at the Royal Life Saving Society’s (RLSS) Yorkshire Regional Heat.
“I was really happy coming 3rd and getting a bronze medal”, King Yee said.
“I know I could’ve done a lot better and I had the potential to get a better position on the podium, but it was my first individual competition of that kind so I had no expectations to come away with anything.”
An unknown sport to some, lifesaving consists of various swimming races that incorporate lifesaving techniques, for example, swimming and carrying a manikin.
However, as it is usually a team sport, the individual category is slightly different and made up of four different events: life support initiative, aquatic initiative, 12 meter rope throw and 100 meter swim & tow.
The two initiative categories place the contestant in high pressure situations and simulate people being in danger, drowning, or not breathing.
Meanwhile, the rope throw consists of the contestant throwing a rope to a ‘victim’ and pulling them onto the side and the swim & tow involves the contestant swimming 50 meters, picking up the ‘victim’ and towing them for the other half of the stretch.
Even though this was just a regional competition, the winner of it qualifies for the upcoming National Championships in November.
“Prior to this event, I had not trained at all as it was still off-season for the university club.
“On the day of the competition I was extremely nervous, simply because I had not done this type of competition before.
“I was a bit out of my comfort zone and since it was an individual event, I didn’t have my teammates there to support me.
Even though King Yee didn’t win the regional heat, she is still happy with her results, as she was up against much more experienced opponents.
“I was only doing this competition for fun and I didn’t have high expectations for myself nor was I pressured to qualify for the Nationals, so in that sense it was relatively relaxing and rewarding.
“All the people I was competing against had done it from a very young age, whereas I only started lifesaving in university four years ago, so they had a lot more experience compared to me.
“It was not close between me and the first and second placed competitors but now I have gained a lot of confidence from this and I definitely think I have the potential to be up there next time.”
