Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Surfing makes Olympic waves
TIMES are changing in the sport of surfing as it prepares for its debut at the Olympics.
A recent sponsorship by Sea Harvest, a SuperSport broadcast deal and the launch of a national City Surf Series underline growing, mainstream interest in the niche sport before it goes to Tokyo 2020 to join other newcomers to the Olympic family: skateboarding, sport climbing, baseball and karate.
Sea Harvest has pledged R250 000 to help identify and nurture junior South African surfers and assist in transformation development.
This follows a decision by SuperSport to broadcast the first three City Surf Series events in Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban. The inaugural series, which includes two more contests in Durban and Cape Town in June, provides a platform for junior and senior surfers to gain experience against global opposition and points on the World Surf League ( WSL) Qualifying Series.
Another mainstream corporate also recently pegged its colours to surfing. The inaugural Volkswagen SA Open of Surfing takes place in Durban from June 14-18, with a R1 million prize purse for men, women, and juniors.
Robin de Kock, general manager for Surfing South Africa, said municipalities such as Nelson Mandela Bay and Buffalo City had recognised the tourism potential and were also providing cash assistance.
The injection of funds and new events has made 2017 the best-ever year for professional surfing in SA, with 13 events and R13m in prize money.
“Of course, behind the scenes the prospect of the Olympics has a positive effect, but it’s also the culmination of a lot of hard work over the last four years between the role players of the sport,” said De Kock.
“Take a youngster like the amazingly talented Mikey February, who arrived on the scene at the Grom Games, a development contest several years ago, and now stands as the top ranked surfer in the WSL Africa rankings, a huge achievement.”
February is a real prospect, having won two of the first three City Surf Series and finishing second in the other. In 2011, he was ranked 468th in the WSL Qualifying Series; he is now 15th, and No 1 in Africa.
De Kock said the City Surf Series would help select the South African Under-18 squad to compete at the International Surfing Association ( ISA) World Surfing Games in France in three weeks, and the World Junior Surfing Championship in Japan in September.
Surfing has grown since the International Olympic Committee voted in August to include two events for 20 men and 20 women from the surfing world at the Games.
It is vindication of 10 years of hard work by ISA president Fernando Aguerre, who said: “Surfing is truly a global sport, more popular and more widely practised than many current Olympic sports, and pursued in more than a hundred countries.”
The road to Tokyo continues this weekend with more than 80 U16 boys and girls from around the country taking part in the Nahoon Junior Open in Buffalo City, while in Cape Town at Monwabisi Beach today, an outreach with local surf development programme Waves For Change takes place.
South Africa’s only active surfer on the main tour of the WSL, Jordy Smith, has thrown his weight behind the last City Surf Series event, the Jordy Smith Cape Town Surf Pro from June 23-25.
Ranked No 2 in the world, Smith won the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach last week, and his support will be another boost for local surfing in the build-up to the sport’s Olympic debut.