Paddleboarder saves woman after shark attack, then wins world title

Just weeks after helping rescue a woman during a great white shark attack off Sydney's Coogee Beach, Australian paddleboarder Charlie Verco has won the world paddleboarding championship in Hawaii, setting a new race record.The 25-year-old completed the 52-kilometre Molokai to Oahu Paddleboard race in 4 hours, 18 minutes and 3 seconds on Sunday. His time broke the previous record, set by fellow Australian Matt Bevilacqua in 2019, by three minutes.The victory gave Verco his fourth world championship title and capped years of success in the event. Speaking after crossing the finish line, he said every edition of the race brings different challenges."I'm so stoked," Verco said as quoted by The Guardian. "It's always a challenge getting across the channel and each year it dishes up something different."In June, he was paddleboarding when he heard cries for help from Leah Stewart, who had been attacked by a great white shark while swimming with two friends about 30 metres from shore.The attack happened at around 11.15 am. Stewart, a teacher and mother of a young daughter, suffered severe injuries to her leg and arm but managed to stay afloat long enough to reach a paddleboard.Verco, who is also a trained surf lifesaver, was the first rescuer to reach her. He paddled towards Stewart as the shark remained nearby. "The shark surfaced, I saw its dorsal fin; it was big, about 3.5 metres," Verco said after the rescue. "I've only ever seen one shark bigger than that, and that was a tiger shark in Hawaii," he added.Verco futher described the frightening moments as he approached her. "I kept paddling towards her and the shark took her underwater and I was going, 'What do I do now?' A couple of seconds later, she popped up again."Verco said Stewart was too weak to climb onto his 5.5-metre paddleboard because of her injuries. "I had to try and keep hold of her with one hand and keep paddling towards shore with the other." He managed to get Stewart to hold onto part of the board before paddling her towards the beach, where others rushed into the water to help.Stewart received emergency treatment on the beach before being taken to a nearby rugby field. From there, she was airlifted to hospital. She later underwent five surgeries, including the amputation of one arm.The attack added to a series of serious shark incidents reported in Australian waters this year. Three spearfishing divers have been killed in shark attacks since mid-May, while a 12-year-old boy died after being attacked by a bull shark in Sydney Harbour earlier this year.After the rescue, Verco travelled to Hawaii for the Molokai to Oahu Paddleboard race, regarded as the world championship and one of the toughest tests in open-water paddleboarding.The 52-kilometre race takes competitors across the Ka'iwi Channel between the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Oahu, where changing winds and ocean swells make conditions unpredictable.This time, Verco stayed focused on racing rather than chasing records. He finished almost 50 minutes ahead of the second-place competitor in the unlimited paddleboard category.Speaking about his race, Verco said he allowed the ocean conditions to guide his pace. "Today for the first three hours I just caught the bumps I felt like catching, and if I felt like they were going under me that was ok."Later in the race, when the conditions improved, he decided to increase his pace. "I got to three hours and the bumps started picking up again. I was like, 'Dad, should I see what I can do?' and Dad couldn't hear me because he's deaf, but George, his brother, said, 'hell yeah let's do it'."Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.

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