L.A. lifeguards runaway winners—again

Los Angeles County lifeguards boast an athletic dynasty that even the New York Yankees can’t touch.

The county team swamped the competition at the three-day National Lifeguard Championships last weekend in a swirl of swimming, paddling, running and water rescue work—for the 24th straight year.

L.A. hasn’t lost the team title since 1986. Since the U.S. Lifesaving Association launched the event in 1970, they’ve captured that title an amazing 37 out of 40 times.

“People were in awe of what we were able to do,” says Capt. Jay Butki, one of the team’s managers. “We’re ecstatic.”

The final team score at this year’s competition at Huntington Beach wasn’t close. The L.A. team scored 812.5 points. The second place squad, from Delaware, finished with 223.75.

“Most likely, we’ll never lose this title,” says Brian Murphy, who won the men’s open championship and is stationed in Santa Monica.

The L.A. County team was so dominant that it also claimed six of the top 10 spots in both the men’s and women’s individual competitions.

The No. 1 woman was Alison Riddle, 24, who won 5 of the 8 competitions she entered, including the iron woman, a combination of running, board paddling and swimming.

“It was awesome,” says Riddle, who savored her ironwoman victory the most. “It’s such a long event and that makes it really tough.”

Making life tougher were water temperatures that didn’t feel like summer. “The water was so cold it gave you an ice cream headache,” she says.

Riddle joined the Lifeguards in 2008, shortly after graduating from USC, where she played varsity water polo. Her weekend victories netted her medals and a pair of sunglasses for each victory. But, in her business, not even champions catch a break: Riddle reported for her regular shift on Monday at 7 a.m. at Redondo Beach’s Avenue C tower.

Riddle, who finished ninth as a rookie in last year’s championship, says she owes much of her success to a trip last winter to train in Australia, where she worked hard on paddle boarding. “To be able to learn from the best in the world was amazing,” she says.

Murphy, the men’s champion, won three events—paddleboard, surf ski and the so-called Taplin relay, a team medley race that involves swimming, paddling and rowing. The 27 year old grew up in the South Bay, with three older brothers who also became lifeguards. He signed up at 18. (He still competes in team events with his brother Mike.)

Murphy remembers being in awe as a little boy at lifeguard competitions. “I grew up watching all these guys race, and now I’m lucky enough to do it myself,” he says.

Riddle and Murphy can’t rest on their victories. Next month, they’ll be jetting to Japan, part of a 12-person national team that will include four other L.A. lifeguards.

The secret to L.A.’s dominance partly involves size. It’s the nation’s largest lifeguard service and hosts the biggest team, with 57 competing this year among the 450 from around the country.

Peak physical conditioning is another L.A. tradition.

“That’s one of the things we pride ourselves on,” says Capt. Chris Linkletter, a team manager and competitor who practices what she preaches. She won a 2K run in the 40 to 44 age bracket and finished second or third in six other events, including two different ironwoman competitions.

The team’s strong representation in the older age categories is a key to the team’s dominance, team members say. They routinely do extraordinarily well in all of the over 30 age brackets, a fact no one knows better than this year’s most senior competitor, John Matesich, 72.

Matesich, a county lifeguard for 49 years, won all of his three events in the over-70 bracket, including the board race and men’s ironman.

“He’s been a legend forever,” says Butki.

So, it seems, has the L.A. team.

Posted 8/10/10