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OCEANSIDE -- After Saturday's preliminary heats at the 21st Annual World Bodysurfing Championships were completed, the list of favorites to become men's grand champion looked very familiar.
In an
event in which experience is a big factor, former grand champions Mike Cunningham, Dave Ford, Tim Casinelli, Thorston Hegberg, Harold Hanley and Bob Burnside are likely candidates to win again.
Wait a minute ... Burnsy!? Sure, Burnside's a former grand champion, but two days ago the 66-year-old became a great-grandfather, His wave crested years ago, right?
Wrong.
"Bob told me
years ago --- he said, 'Mike, if you're not careful, I'm right behind you,' " said Cunningham, the grandest of champions with six to his credit and a teammate of Burnside's with the Gillis Beach
Bodysurfing Association team. "If you miss a wave, Bob Burnside is going to be right there. He could win it just like anyone else."
Burnside's grand championship came only eight years ago, when he won the final heat in grand style.
As is the norm for the grand championship heat, the waves were fairly blown out by the early
afternoon in the 1 989 World Championships. The trick was to catch the outside break, then reach the reform to the inside and ride the wave to the beach. Burnside caught the heat's best wave, which
carried him to the reform and toward the pier. Rather than pull up, he kept going.
"I was not going to take any chance of pulling out and tumbling into the pier," Burnside said. So he
went right through, to the delight of the crowd.
"I knew from the people screaming from the pier and on the shore that he had won it," said Cunningham, who was in the heat.
Safe
to say Burnside is a little nuts. He gets a kick out of bodysurfing the 10-foot plus waves of Puerto Escondido. He has a pierced ear, he smokes cigarettes, but is in such great shape, he won the Ironman
and surf competitions in the 58-and-over division at the National Lifeguard Championships in San Diego last week, and took second in three other events.
Burnside, who retired his position as Chief
Lifeguard in Los Angeles County in 1982 and now lives in Palm Desert, is a shining example that becoming a senior citizen doesn't only mean that you can get a discount on dinner and collect social
security. It doesn't reserve you a permanent spot on the couch.
As Burnside gets older, his keys to vitality include regular exercise (he swims two miles six days a week), eating right ("but
not fanatically," he said), don't overindulge in anything and "always have a positive thought."
Burnside admits he's slowed down, so to compensate he said he gets himself in better
shape each year, which means he'll likely be competing at the World Bodysurfing Championships for years to come.
"If I couldn't walk, I would just roll off the end of the pier to do it,"
Burnside said. "I believe you can never allow anything to stop you."
BODYSURFING NOTES --- Oceanside Mayor Dick Lyon, 74, was no also-ran in his 65-and-over division. In his heat, Lyon
followed Burnside into the deeper water hoping for some bigger waves and bigger scores. When the waves didn't come, he swam in closer to shore to get his wave count up (surfers are scored on best four
waves) and might have advanced had he not been called for interference, much to Lyon's chagrin. So much for executive privilege. ... The best men's score of the day went to Jim Shearer of Hermosa Beach
with a 96. Former grand champ Virginia Cartwright turned in the best women's score with a 76. Defending grand champ Tish Denevan also advanced.... Today's semifinal heats of the World Bodysurfing
Championships, co-sponsored by the North County Times, begin at 7 a.m., with the age division finals starting at 9:45 a.m. The grand championship heat, pitting all the age division champs against each
other, should get under way at around 12:30 p.m.
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