TANDLER LEADS AUSSIES IN JUNIOR DOUBLE ACT
COOLANGATTA’S Kai Tandler says his World Junior Championships ambition is back on track following his win in the Surf Series at Currumbin Beach.
Tandler and Victorian India Robinson claimed boys’ and girls’ top honour in the World Surf League Junior Qualifying Series (JQS) competition, which featured the best young surfers from Australia, Japan and New Zealand.
Tandler was comfortable in his finale as he held off Sunshine Coast’s Noah Stocca.
“It feels so good to get my first big win,” Tandler said.
“It’s been such a sick weekend of waves and everyone has been surfing so good, so I’m over the moon.
“I missed an event at the start of the year, so have been playing catch up all season so this is a really important win, especially with the aim of making it to the World Junior Championships.
“I have been building towards this result for the last few events, so I’m hoping to carry this form into the next event in Cronulla.”
Prior to this weekend, Tandler was sitting in ninth place on the WSL JQS series rankings, with yesterday’s result seeing him climb the leaderboard where he will sit alongside frontrunners Callum Robson (Evans Head) and Dextar Muskens (Coolangatta).
A dominant performance from Robinson saw her claim one of the highest single wave scores of the weekend with a near perfect 9.00 in the women’s decider.
“This is a really awesome feeling,” Robinson said.
“I’ve had a really rough start to the year, so it was cool to make the final and take the win, especially against some of the toughest women’s junior surfers.
Australia/Oceana WSL Junior Qualifying Series rankings leader Zahli Kelly (Clayfield) was unable to find her rhythm in the final and finished fourth behind Holly Williams (Buddina).