City of Perth surf life saver Max Anderson-Loake wins prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University

City of Perth surf life saver Max Anderson-Loake has conquered the Indian and Pacific oceans. Now he is taking on the world. Fresh from second place in the recent Enduro event in the WA Ironman Series, the 21-year-old has accepted a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University. He’s only the 15th Hale School student to be awarded the prestigious international postgraduate scholarship. Anderson-Loake will study modern statistics and data analysis and specifically how to use it in natural disaster response and recovery. “As a society we are faced with really complex issues, such as climate change, and I think people are recognising the ability for data and statistics to solve real world problems,” he told Hale School’s website. A high achiever from a young age, Anderson-Loake graduated from Hale in 2016, one of only 16 students that year with a perfect ATAR rank of 99.95. He has also completed a Bachelor of Philosophy and an undergraduate degree in maths and stats at UWA. He’ll be heading over to the UK next September, which will have a homely feel about it — he was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and moved to Perth with his family when he was in Year 2. Anderson-Loake fell in love with surf life saving from the moment he joined Nippers, graduated to patrols and then the ironman competition and is a past national and State champion. He also represented the Western Suns State team for the past four years and in 2018 finished eighth in the iconic 42km Coolangatta Gold race on the Gold Coast. All that and he still managed to run a not-for-profit program, Ignite Mentoring, that empowers young people to reach their potential by improving self-confidence. “We’ve been working with students with English as a second language and building their confidence,” he said. The only issue for Anderson-Loake with his UK move? There will be no surf life saving circuit to conquer in his four-year stint in the UK. “I am definitely going to miss surf life saving and the beach,” he said. “I’m thinking I may take up rowing, I will need a sport to get me through.” Given his success rate so far, it would not surprise to see him appear in a future final of the famous Oxbridge Boat Race.