Jordy moves to No.1
SouthAfrican surfers are riding high internationally
JORDY Smith produced his career best result in the South Pacific last Sunday when he finished third in the Billabong Pro Tahiti to rocket into the No. 1 spot on the World Surf League (WSL) rankings for the first time since 2011.
The 29-year-old Durbanite, who defeated reigning world champ John John Florence of Hawaii and reached the semifinals in the hollow barrels of Teahupo’o for the first time, was justifiably chuffed at climbing to the top of the leaderboard with four events remaining on the 2017 WSL Championship Tour (CT) calendar.
“I am stoked to be in the top spot,” said Smith. “Obviously, it is a long way to go, but it is sick to be in the front there.
“This is a new year and I just want to bring something new, something fresh, and keep trying my hardest.”
He will be wearing the Jeep Rankings Leader’s yellow vest for the first time in the next event, the Hurley Pro Trestles, where he is a two-time and defending event winner.
The Top 34 ranked surfers will be in action at Lower Trestles from September 6-17, which is touted as the best high performance point break in California and is close to Smith’s adopted home town of San Clemente.
After advancing to the final series (quarter-final, semi-final or final) in five of the seven CT events completed this year, including winning the Rip Curl Bells Beach in Australia at Easter, Smith holds a slender 950 points lead over Florence, with Australians Matt Wilkinson and Owen Wright 1 900 and 2500 points behind.
With a solid track record of two wins at Trestles and final series results in France and Portugal, a fit and focused Smith is likely to be heading into the year-end event at Pipeline in Hawaii in December as a major contender for the 2017 WSL crown and the opportunity to become the first South African world surfing champion since Shaun Tomson in 1977.
Other South African surfers continue to ride the crest of the wave internationally with Durbanite Grant “Twiggy” Baker the reigning WSL Big Wave Tour (BWT) champion and Antony Smyth of Cape Town clinching the gold medal at the 2016 Stance ISA World Adaptive Surfing Championship in California.
This year Michael February of Kommetjie has consolidating his charge for a spot on the 2018 CT by jumping to No. 2 on the Qualifying Series (QS) rankings, Bianca Buitendag of Victoria Bay clinched the bronze medal at the ISA World Surfing Games in May, Jordy Maree of Kalk Bay finished fifth in the WSL World Junior Championship in Australia in January and Steven Sawyer grabbed ninth spot in the WSL World Longboard Championships.
The magnitude of these achievements becomes even greater when one considers that there are only about 1 000 South Africa surfers in all those disciplines who compete regularly, compared with the tens of thousands who compete in the USA, Australia, Brazil, Europe, Japan and elsewhere on the international stage.
The growth of the WSL Africa regional series of events for men, women and junior men and women will provide even more opportunities for local surfers as the sport heads into the spotlight of being an Olympic discipline in Japan in 2020.