IRONMAN Zane Holmes and his teammates dedicated every step on the sand and stroke in the surf at yesterday's Ocean Assault carnival to clubmate Aaron Murphy, fighting for his life after being hit by a car on the Gold Coast last Thursday.

Instead of competing beside his Northcliffe clubmates yesterday, the popular 18-year-old ironman, who moved from Tasmania to the Gold Coast to pursue his dreams, remains in hospital.

The New Year's Day accident has hit the surf lifesaving community hard, with athletes wanting to honour their injured comrade the best way they know how - with victory.

Murphy trains with some of the best in the sport including world and Australian ironman champions Shannon Eckstein and Holmes and former Australian titleholder Kristyl Smith.

"He's been a big part of everyone's thoughts today," said Holmes, who won both the ski and ironman events in the finale at Southport.

"He's a pretty special guy and very popular and it's really affected everyone. So we're out here flying the flag for him."

Surf lifesavers also wore coloured wristbands - purple for strength and red for courage - as a tribute.

Northcliffe's Courtney Hancock won yesterday's ironwoman from Smith and Teri Sullivan with Beijing Olympic swimmer Megan Nay dominating the women's surf swim.

Other top results included Smith winning the women's board race and Trent Grimsey claiming the honours in the men's surf race from Beijing Olympic 10km open water swimmer Ky Hurst.

But Hurst and teammates Ben Allen and Phil Clayton struck back to win the blue-ribbon Taplin event, the final race of the carnival.