KINGS OF THE CASTLE
Board rider team selection

By Andrew Stackpool

KINGS LAC Geoff Byrne, from No. 11 Squadron, cheers the Australian team on during the run-swim-run event as part of Exercise Fincastle.

Photo by LACW Sonja Canty

Fincastle sports results

Event Winner Beach flag race Australia Tug-of-war Australia Run-swim-run Australia Orienteering New Zealand Golf Australia

AUSTRALIANS emerged the victors from clashes with age-old rivals New Zealand and the UK in a range of innovative sports events during Exercise Fincastle.

While the Air Force’s top AP-3C crew fought for the title in the traditional submarine-hunting competition, the other Air Force members deployed to New Zealand’s North Isaldn on this year’s Exercise Tasmanex – which Fincastle is part of – engaged their counterparts in all manner of physical contest, from tug-of-war to golf.

Deployed technician Corporal Luke Simpson said the Australians had most parts of the competition won hands down.

“As Australians we’re always keen to do well at sports,” he said. “All the other countries were pretty dark on us at one stage there.”

The finals in two of the five sports held on the day were contested between Australians as the other nations seemed unable to grab even second place.

In the beach flag race, in which participants began from a lying position and had to sprint for a target object, Leading Aircraftman Robert Bigg, from No. 10 Squadron, won in the final against No. 11 Squadron’s Corporal Tim Burrows.

Australians also placed well in the parttriathlon race, which featured a run and swim.

“Flying Officer Andrew Burke from 11SQN went into the water coming third or fourth in the run and ended up coming out in first place quite easily,” CPL Simpson said.

But by far the most satisfying win had been in the tug-of-war, in which the UK teams had claimed to be unbeatable, but the Australians “ended up thumping them pretty convincingly”.

The Australians had the competition sewn up by the time the orienteering event was contested.

It was ultimately won by the New Zealand team, which secured second place for the Kiwis.

The more traditionalist sportsmen of the three countries took to the golf course in a contest also convincingly won by the Australians.

Flight Sergeant Michael Bogan said competitive spirit was high for the golf tournament, which has been almost as traditional a part of Ex Fincastle as the sub-hunting.

“It’s a fairly passionate game for most of the people on the deployment,” he said.

“There were plenty of golfers who were pretty keen to participate. “We had some reasonably handy golfers there this year and we had some good results, so I think we won quite easily.”

Flight Sergeant Brett Tassell came first with 78 off the stick, with the competition decided on each nation’s eight-person team’s accumulated result.”

 

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