Grinding - The SailGP Human Engine Challenge!

No, not the GRINDR human engine challenge, but the Grinder SailGP human engine challenge!

This morning at Bathers Beach while the SailGP Trophy sparkled in the sunlight, eight of Perth’s elite sports people went head-to-head in a grinding competition with SailGP grinders Kinley Fowler from BONDS Flying Roos and Louis Sinclair from Black Foils SailGP Team.

Competitors from local AFL, cricket, rugby, basketball and soccer teams rotated through 30-second max-efforts on the grinder machine aiming to log as many watts as possible. Three women were in the mix.

Western Force’s Darby Lancaster and Fremantle Dockers’ Sam Sturt gave the professional grinders a run for their money. They narrowly trailed Sinclair on the leaderboard and finished slightly ahead of Fowler, who claimed he was saving his energy for this weekend’s big SailGP race!

RESULTS:

• WINNER: Louis Sinclair, Black Foils SailGP Team

Kinley Fowler (left) and winner Louis Sinclair

• RUNNER-UP: Darby Lancaster, Western Force

• THIRD PLACE: Sam Sturt, Fremantle Dockers

• FOURTH PLACE: Kinley Fowler, BONDS Flying Roos

PARTICIPATING ATHLETES:

• Billy McRae (Perth Wildcats)

• Jack Hutchinson (West Coast Eagles)

• Mathew Kelly (Perth Scorchers)

• Sam Sturt (Fremantle Dockers)

• Georgia Cleaver (West Coast Eagles)

• Megan Wynn (Perth Glory)

• Isobel Dalton (Perth Glory)

• Louis Sinclair (NZL SailGP)

• Darby Lancaster (Western Force)

• Kinley Fowler (BONDS Flying Roos)

And here are some of the others hard grinding!

*Story and photographs by Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey

Jean Hudson is our Shipping and Sailing Correspondent and also a regular feature writer, reviewer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

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