Knysna surfer finishes top NMU contestant
While experienced Knysna surfer Greg Cuthbert missed out on a podium finish at this year's USSA competition, he still managed to finish top of the Nelson Mandela University heat.
The 2019 University Sports South Africa team competition took place from Thursday 11 July to Sunday 14 July and brought together the country's best surfers from five universities around the country – Nelson Mandela University, defending champions University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, University of Stellenbosch, and Varsity College from Durban.
This year's competition was a chance for another bite at the cherry for an NMU outfit that was busy rebuilding its men's and women's teams after finishing second behind UCT for two years and losing a couple of experienced surfers this year.
Cuthbert was one of NMU's more experienced surfers heading into this year's USSA competition, having made it through to the final in last year's contest. Last week Thursday, however, he found himself lining up for NMU in Heat 7, where he managed to go straight through to Round 3 having finished top of his heat.
Cuthbert would tackle the waves in Round 3 as part of Heat 2, where he finished second to qualify for the quarterfinals, where he was then placed in Heat 4. Cuthbert secured second spot in this heat yet again, ending behind Varsity College's Donovan Wichmann – who would be knocked out in the second semifinal, while Cuthbert would successfully qualify for Sunday's finals once again after finishing second in the first semifinal.
Cuthbert had an undeniably difficult task ahead of him in the final, as he would have to take on UCT's Steff Burrows, Rhodes' Guy Campbell, and Maties' Shaun Joubert. Despite his best efforts, Cuthbert was only able to finish in fourth spot, with Campbell finishing third, Burrows second, and Joubert claiming top prize.
The competition wasn't only about the individual performances, however, as each surfer's individual placing contributed a score to their team's overall tally. While Cuthbert's individual performance was impressive, unfortunately his team-mates were unable to live up to the results achieved by NMU in previous years as the men's team finished fourth behind Varsity College (third), Maties (second), and UCT (first).
The NMU women's team managed to finish third behind UCT (second) and Maties (first), which lifted the Varsity's combined outcome to third place behind Maties (second) and UCT (first).