Juniors doing SA proud
South Africa’s best youngsters continue to impress on tour
Paul Botha
SOUTH Africa’s best contest surfers of all ages have been in action at home and abroad in the past few weeks, and the contest season continues unabated both here and in Europe for the next couple of weeks.
Starting with the juniors aged 18 and under, the South African junior team finished ninth among the 39 nations at the annual World Junior Championships in the Azores last weekend.
The team from France wrote themselves into the history books by taking the team gold medal for the first time, ahead of Australia, Hawaii and Japan, who also won their first team medal.
Kai Woolf of Jeffreys Bay delivered South Africa’s best individual result, placing equal ninth overall in the 16-andunder girls’ division.
Sebastian Williams of Durban and Adin Masencamp of Strand both posted great performances before bowing out of the world’s biggest junior event in equal 13th position in the 16-and-under and 18-and-under boys’ divisions respectively.
Most of the team are back in action at the Junior Series event at Seal Point this weekend, with prestigious event, series and WSL Africa junior titles up for grabs.
Jordy Maree of Kommetjie, Masencamp and Jake Elkington of Kommetjie, who represented Great Britain in the Azores, are locked in a battle at the top of the WSL Africa boys’ rankings.
Kirsty McGillivray of Jeffreys Bay and teammate Sophie Bell of Salt Rock head the girls’ standings.
From Seal Point the whole junior circus moves 20km east to Jeffreys Bay for next week’s South African Junior Championships, which run from Wednesday to Sunday.
Featuring teams selected through arduous trials in the eight regional bodies affiliated to Surfing South Africa, the event crowns annual national age-group champions, and the best regional team.
Moving to the World Surf League, Matt McGillivray of Jeffreys Bay reached the semifinals of the Casablanca Pro in Morocco last Sunday, ultimately finishing equal third in the QS 1 500-rated Qualifying Series event, which was co-sanctioned by WSL Africa and WSL Europe.
That was McGillivray’s fourth appearance in the top four in WSL events this year and moved him up 10 places into 85th in the rankings, a great return for a teenager in his rookie year as a professional surfer.
Casablanca was the final open event of the year for WSL Africa. It saw Beyrick de Vries of uMhlanga and Faye Zoetmulder of Cape St Francis crowned as the WSL Africa men’s and women’s champions respectively.
Michael February of Kommetjie continued his QS momentum and posted the highest single-ride score, 8.17 out of 10, on the opening day of the QS 10 000 Cascais Pro in Portugal.
February then progressed to round three against some of the world’s top performers, ending his campaign in equal 37th place overall and likely to move a couple of positions up the leader board.
In the women’s Championship Tour event at Cascais, Bianca Buitendag suffered her third successive early exit. Finishing equal 13th, she retained her 12th spot on the rankings but has dropped further behind in the race for 10th place and automatic requalification for next year’s tour.
Buitendag and Jordy Smith, ranked No 4 on the men’s tour, will be back in contest mode this week when the women’s and men’s events at the France Pro get under way on the Bay of Biscay coast on Monday.