Groms on a Mission

DRONING ON: By the time the waves get to Lower Point they're totally rippable. Photo Supplied

The best junior surfers from all over the country have qualified for this prestigious tournament, which is into its 25th iteration, via demanding selection trials run by their organisations. At stake are individual national titles for Under 12, Under 14, Under 16 and Under 18 boys and girls, along with the coveted Freedom Cup - awarded to the district whose team members accumulate the highest points totals across all age divisions.

JBay is a historic venue and has hosted many successful surfing competitions. From Championship Tour events and national longboarding contests to this event. It's an idyllic venue for a surfing tournament. From the more grinding walls at the top, as you move down so does the wave began to power down. Towards the end, Lower Point delivers long, highly contestable right-handers conducive to high-performance surfing.

Kicking off at 7:30, the first day's first wave on Wednesday was ridden by U18 surfer Dan Emslie from Buffalo City, son of the famous Greg, national surfing hero and coach to Olympic silver medallist Bianca Buitendag. It was a long ride. Dan banked a 5.17 to open the scores. He followed it up with an even better 6.67 and went on to win the opening heat.

MIRROR IMAGE: Christian Venter took a second in his opening U18 heat. Photo Mike Ruthnum

There are a lot of heats to get through, and Day 1 saw a total of 26 heats kicked off for the boys, with two heats for the girls. The girls continued yesterday for another 12 heats. It was a big day. With 16 heats for the boys, a mammoth 28 heats were completed.

Other top performances in the U18 boys round were James Ribbink (EThekwini Surfriders Association) 11.50, Joel Dace (Nelson Mandela Bay Surfriders)10.33, Luke van Wyk (Cape Town Surfriders) 13.67, and Kyra Bennie (Cape Winelands), 11.73.

For the U16 Boys division, an onshore southerly started to puff, but the waves remained contestable. Top surfers in this division included Simon Winter (Cape Town Surfriders) 14.44, Joel Fowles (Buffalo City) 10.50 and Nate Colby (Ethekweni Surfriders) 15.50.

BACK ATTACK: Gordon Falangile looks to the future. He won his U14 heat. Photo Ruthnum

The competitive U14 Boys heats hit the water as the wind turned back to offshore southwest, and there were some flawless waves to be had in the high tide conditions. Josh Malherbe (Buffalo City) won his heat convincingly, and Rory Dace (Nelson Mandela Bay) was another stand-out.

The long day's surfing finished off with the first round of the U12 Girls. The perennial stand-out Leah Lepront (UGU) won the first heat with relative ease. After that, Mikayla Jefferis (Ethekweni) took out the win in the day's final heat.

Light offshore winds and small but clean swell revealed itself yesterday for Day 2. First in the water were the U16 Girls. Standouts of this very competitive division included Chloe Ribbink (Ethekweni) 12.83, Gemma Hanafey (Buffalo City) with 12.50 and Anastasia Venter (Cape Winelands ) with 12.63.

In the U18 Girls, Adriel Wolmarans (Buffalo City) 12.00 and Aimee Du Preez (Buffalo City) 14.00 were the two standouts who won their respective heats relatively easily. The U14 Girls division saw some excellent surfing from the likes of Louise Lepront (UGU) 15.33, Remi Fourie (Cape Winelands 15.33 and Emily Jenkinson (Cape Town Surfriders) 12.50. The girls pulled off powerful turns on the small wave faces and did enough to impress the judges and advance to the next rounds.

POWER ROUND-HOUSE: Mikayla Jefferis killed her U12 heat at the end of Day 1. Photo Ruthnum

Young Ben Esterhuyse (Cape Town Surfriders) had a brilliant heat in the U12 Boss division, banking a 7.17 and a 9-point ride for a heat-winning total of 16.17. He left all three of his opponents needing a combination of waves to catch up to him. Ben put on a virtuoso performance on his backhand, surfing with power and flow to get the best scores of the round. Mikey Todd (Cape Town Surfriders) was another U12 surfer who impressed, winning the second heat of the round.

By the time the U18 Boys hit the water for their Round 2 heats, just after lunch, the swell had dropped considerably, and it was a struggle to find any good waves linking up all the way through. The top scorers for this round were River Gericke (Eden) with 15.33 points and Steven Steyn (Eden) with an 11.00 points tally.

Ollie Boucher, representing Nelson Mandela Bay Surfriders, vindicated his team selection with a solid performance in the first heat of the U16 round 2 with a heat win. Blake Crankshaw from Eden also put on a strong heat win in his heat with a total of 10.67 points.

PRONTO: Perennial standout Leah Lepront from Ugu easily took her first U12 heat. Photo Ruthnum

The day finished with the second round of the Boys U14 division. David Moussouris (Nelson Mandela Bay) won his heat, as did Malachi Wolmarans from Buffalo City. Adam Faclier, representing Cape Town Surfriders, strode into the lead of his heat with an impressive 13.33 points and advanced along with Jesse Olivier from Eden. The upset of the division saw one of the U14 favourites, Matt Canning, eliminated from the event after failing to get a decent second scoring wave in his heat.

Eden and Nelson Mandela Bay showed the most geesThe forecast for the rest of the week looks good, with favourable winds and a decent push in the swell. This new swell should start filling in tomorrow morning and remain for the rest of the weekend. In the Loud and Proud Team Spirit award, awarded to the team with the most spirit at the event, Eden and Nelson Mandela Bay showed the most gees. Still, it’s a 5-day event, and the team which keeps up the spirit over all five days will be the eventual winner of this award.

A male and female Surfer of the Contest will also be announced at the Award Ceremony on Sunday, October 9th.

The entire event is being streamed live via the Supersports School app. Find the app on your app store and register. It can also be viewed via the website - https://live.supersportschools.com/home.
You must first register to watch the live feed (which takes about one minute). All heats are available for replays.

The event results and schedule can be tracked via Live Heats here - https://www.liveheats.com/events/53342/schedule