THE headteacher of a Monmouthshire school is hoping to become the oldest lifesaver champion in the UK in 2002.

Graham Murphy, (pictured) head of the recently opened Archbishop Rowan Williams Church In Wales Primary School in Portskewett, said he has been training hard for the last few months for a series of national championships starting in West Wales in April.

He is also expecting to take part in another championship competition in September. Part of the Welsh national lifesaving championships, it will be held in Swansea. Finally, if everything goes right Mr Murphy, of Pant-yr-heol Close, Henllys, Cwmbran, will be among the top 16 lifesavers competing in a two-day championship in Sheffield on the third weekend in November.

Mr Murphy, a past British lifesaving championship winner and chairman of the South Wales Lifesaving Society, said: "I won the British lifeguard championships when I was 38 and 39. I am now 48 so I am looking, before I am 50, at one more crack at the British lifeguard championship.

"At the moment I train from 6am to 7am every day of the week at Maindee Pools, Newport, or Club Indigo, a private health club in Cwmbran.

"The training involves a lot of sprint swimming and something that's very close to keelhauling people through the water, which basically means I coil a rope, throw it out 13 metres and then pull somebody in over that distance in around ten seconds." Although Mr Murphy, who is a senior trainer for Newport and Maindee Pools Lifesaver Club, will be competing against many people half his age he believes he will come out a winner.

He said: "I feel very confident. I know that my training has gone well and as I have got a little bit older the idea of just slogging up and down the pool has disappeared and I am a bit more thoughtful with regards to quality training as opposed to bulk training."