If anyone knows what a medal haul is, it is Dunedin's Andrew Trembath (17).
That is because he has just returned from the world surf life-saving championships in Montpellier, France, with 15 medals.
Trembath, a year 13 pupil at Otago Boys' High School, represented the New Zealand youth team against 21 other countries and North Island club Papamoa in the world youth interclub championships.
New Zealand finished second to Australia in the world youth event, while Papamoa comprehensively won the interclub championship, beating Indonesia's Nuotatori Modenesi club by almost 150 points.
Trembath, who took up surf life-saving when he was 7, represented the North Island club so he could participate in team events, something he could not do representing St Clair, his usual club, because no other youths went to France.
His medal haul consisted of 10 gold, two silver and three bronze, a tally he never saw coming.
''I went over there and I wasn't ranked very high. I wasn't even top 10 or anything. Then I was smashing out these PBs, like 6sec PBs, and it got me in the medals.
''I hadn't really properly raced for life-saving in a 3m deep pool with all the gear before ... it was definitely a bit of a shock,'' he said.
He claimed two gold, two silver and two bronzes for the New Zealand team, including gold in the 200m obstacle swim and the 100m rescue medley, while his eight gold medals in the club competition went a long way to helping Papamoa beat 106 other clubs from around the world.
Local surf life-saving identity Scott Weatherall said Trembath's ''pretty inspirational'' medal haul ''would have to be a first'' for a local competitor and that he had set a precedent.
Trembath, a promising swimmer for the Neptune club, has now spent the past seven weeks competing in France, Hawaii and Wellington in swimming and surf life-saving competitions.
He competed at the Junior Pan Pacific swimming championship in Hawaii in August, narrowly missing out on bronze in the 100m backstroke.
After jetting back to New Zealand, he swam at the national short-course championships in Wellington, winning gold in the open 50m backstroke.
He went under 2min for the first time in the 200m backstroke final but was disqualified for not breaking the surface with his head by the 15m mark.
From Wellington, he went to France and he is now looking forward to a short break before stepping up his swim training in a bid to qualify for next year's world university games.
Trembath hopes to study sport and exercise science at Otago University next year and plans to pursue a future in swimming.
''Swimming is more of a professional sport. There's more pathways in place. I will definitely carry on doing surf stuff, though. They sort of correspond,'' he said.
Trembath is aiming to represent the two-time defending champion Black Fins at the surf life-saving championships in the Netherlands in 2016.
- by Robert Van Royen
