Special Events
Photo by Tommy Williams Photography
After a complete wipeout of events during the summer of 2021 it was a great relief for the WBSLSC & the Bass Coast Community to see our popular events spring back to life in 2022.
The successful staging of the 36th San Remo Channel Challenge, the 29th Cowes Classic and the 2nd Little Penguin Dash brought a lot of enjoyment to our loyal competitors, spectators & local traders and once again helped the finances of the Woolamai Beach Surf Life Saving Club and the Phillip Island Netball & Football Club, who are our partners in running the Cowes Events.
It took a lot of hard work from our Special Events team of Max, Sully, Melina, Riley & Graeme to pull it all together, especially after Cape Paterson SLSC had to cancel their January Aquathon again after some pushback from their local community regarding Covid risks. Our next challenge was having to change the date for the Cowes events from early February to early March because of the New Year Covid surge – this resulted in a lot of extra administrative work as several competitors who had entered online could not attend on the revised date and were entitled to refunds. However, we pushed on to hold a reduced Bass Coast Series competition based on the San Remo & Cowes events and we were especially pleased to see the Little Penguin Dash take place with strong numbers for the second staging of this event. We see this is a terrific community event for the youngsters and it will ensure a healthy number of future competitors will always be coming up through the age groups.
The San Remo Channel Challenge holds pride of place amongst our events and this year was no exception as we had just under 500 competitors register for the individual and relay categories and it was a great event held in perfect conditions and once again we had several elite Aussie triathletes with world rankings come along and compete on the day, including two female Olympians, Chloe Bateup & Sarah Henderson, who competed at the Tokyo Games. The winner of both main events, Callum McClusky, currently has a world ranking of 150 and is competing in Europe during the winter. He won both events comfortably with a smart time of 11.04 for the Channel Challenge. The Open Junior winner was Ryan McKenzie, Grandson of veteran Woolie Member, Ron Stephens. Ron was one of many past and present members who came down to help with the Channel Challenge over a long day and the efforts of our volunteer helpers are integral to the continuing success of our Special Events.
The Cowes events started off well with 98 competitors starting in the Little Penguin Dash, which was a surprisingly high number under the circumstances, and this augurs well for the future with a prediction that it won’t be long before we see 150 youngsters lining up in this event. Later in the day we had 160 competitors participate in the Cowes Classic after that event had been adversely affected by the change of date.
The number of Local Competitors participating in these events reflects how important they are for the Bass Coast Community. More than a third of the Channel Challenge participants were locals and the competition for local category prizes has always created a lot of interest amongst Bass Coast Shire residents. At Cowes we had more than half of the fields for both events come from the local community with the majority of Little Penguin Dash entrants coming from the Nippers program and from the Junior P.I. footy and netball teams. It is also great to see many of the locals do well in the Open categories with Justin Tilley, a local O/40 competitor coming in fourth overall of the 435 Individual Channel Challenge competitors.
Once again, we thank all of our sponsors and supporters, especially the Bass Coast Shire Council and their events management team and we look forward to the 2023 Summer of Events.
2023 San Remo Channel Challenge – Sat 4th February
2023 Little Penguin Dash – Sat 18th February
2023 Cowes Classic – Sat 18th February
Major Sponsors
Bass Coast Shire
San Remo Hotel
Bendigo Bank San Remo
Phillip Island Nature Parks
Phillip Island and San Remo Rotary
Westernport Water