Bree McCowatt in the World Deaf Championships in Brazil

Our young, upcoming lifeguard who won the Eastern Region Junior Lifeguard of the Year award for last season, Bree McCowatt, has just represented NZ in the World Deaf Championships in Brazil 🇧🇷

This was no ordinary swim meet for Bree....
🇳🇿 She carried the flag for NZ in the Opening Ceremony
👂 No hearing assistance was allowed - no hearing aids of any sort, so sign language only!
Congratulations Bree!!

Read Bree’s short comment on her experience:

“My first international competition and my first deaf competition was awesome and I am forever grateful for this opportunity!

With many high and low moments it was a good opportunity to get some experience under my belt and learn some new things. I faced many challenges, such as swimming in a 3m deep, 50m long pool, swimming anticlockwise at warm up, trying to understand what was going on with approximately 4 different sign languages and 5 different oral languages, but there were also some moments that I won’t forget: representing NZ, carrying the NZ flag at the opening ceremony, meeting people, making finals, getting top ten places, swapping caps and just experiencing such a different environment at a swim meet!

I would like to say thank you to all of my friends, family, teammates and other supporters who have continuously had my back and supported me the whole time and to all of my sponsors: Teamline, R-Line Electrolyte Drink, Pic's Peanut Butter, Shakti Mat and JOLYN Australasia who helped me to get to Brazil!

I cannot thank everyone enough and I feel so privileged to have been able to experience this once in a lifetime opportunity of competing at the 5th World Deaf Swimming Champs.

Bring on the Asia-Pacific Games in Hong Kong later this year!”

We are incredibly proud of you and your achievements Bree - we look forward to seeing you on patrol this summer!
☀️Look out for Bree and say hi when you head to the beach to swim between the flags from Labour Weekend on.