‘The greatest feeling’: La Jolla lifeguards win annual relay

The Olympics place the world’s top athletes on a global stage, but San Diego lifeguards have their own version — the Lifeguard Relay, which pits teams against one another in Herculean challenges for bragging rights.

The annual event, held Aug. 6 in Mission Beach, featured four lifeguard teams of 17 members each from different areas of San Diego: La Jolla; Mission Beach and Pacific Beach combined; Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs combined; and the boating safety unit and bay lifeguards combined.

At the end of the day, team La Jolla came out on top.

“We were thrilled to win that. It was a tough feat and tough competition,” lifeguard Sgt. Kelsie Gleason said. “The athleticism we have in La Jolla is top notch.”

The team participated in multiple events ranging from running to mock rescues using challenging equipment, said team captain and Windansea lifeguard Tommy Cavanaugh.

In the first leg, he said, one team member runs a half-mile on the beach (a quarter-mile to a cone and back) to launch the relay race.

“It’s one continuous race,” Cavanaugh said. “There is no stopping until it’s over.”

After the running comes the landline portion, “the most crucial part in terms of teamwork,” Cavanaugh said.

Once the opening runner tags the rest of the team, the 16 other members must engage in a mock rescue that includes using techniques that are considered outdated.

Lifeguards get a vessel called a “rescue can” — like a buoy — to the victim to hold onto, and the people on the beach pull the person to shore with a rope, Cavanaugh said.

In the relay exercise, teams had a swimmer pretend to be in distress while another went out with the rope. Team members on the beach let out the rope on pace with the speed of the rescue swimmer.

If the team lets out the rope too slowly, the swimmer is slowed; too fast and the rope goes ahead of the swimmer.

Also, coils of rope bundled on the beach have to be released at the right time.

“It’s this big orchestrated effort and difficult to do it correctly,” Cavanaugh said. “As soon as the swimmer [reaches] a flag, two landline pullers work together to pull the swimmer through the surf back to the beach. It can go catastrophically wrong or really well, depending on how everyone performs.”

Once everyone is on land, the next leg of the race begins.

For the rescue swim, a swimmer goes back out to the flag at sea and has to be rescued by another member of the team. The two then swim back to shore together.

Once they are both on land, they tag another pair who does the same thing.

“The rescuer is leading and the swimmer is holding the flag. They have to maintain contact with the rescue can,” Cavanaugh said. “If there is a good wave, they can try to catch the wave together.”

Then comes the longest leg of the relay — a 700-yard roundtrip swim.

“That is for the fastest swimmers,” Cavanaugh said. “They swim to the furthest flag. They have to be strategic and look at areas of lack of surf. They have to get to the flag. At that point, they can take any line back to shore. It shows who can read the water.”

The last leg of the race is the paddle swim rescue, in which a swimmer goes out to a flag and has to be rescued by a lifeguard on a paddleboard. Then the pair must paddle back to shore together.

“There was a wave that came to [the runner-up team] and then a wave to us, so for a split second, it looked like their wave was going to be better than ours. It made the race extremely dynamic,” Cavanaugh said. “I honestly thought we might not get a wave and they could take the lead. It was pandemonium for that moment; everyone was screaming. We managed to catch a wave and at that point it was clear we were going to win it.

“It’s so much more fun like that. You can’t put it into words.”

Winning the title “was the greatest feeling we have ever had in sports,” Cavanaugh said. “It was hands-down the greatest feeling ever. It was so competitive and the other teams were gunning just as hard as we were, which made it extra special.

“There were five lead changes throughout the race. The other teams had some of the best athletes that have ever worked. It made it super special to come out on top.”

It also was special because lifeguard Lt. Lonnie Stephens will be retiring in November, making this his last relay with team La Jolla.

“The team is very selfless and prides themselves in their roles as public servants,” Stephens said. “They are extremely supportive of each other and have amazing chemistry. Even on the roughest days they are smiling and always willing to give back to the community.”

“All four districts have amazing athletes,” he added. “And any of the districts were more than capable of winning the relay race.” ♦

Originally Published: August 16, 2024 at 5:28 p.m.