Youngsters surf ‘Swell’ in Interclub
WHILE the world’s best surfers were chasing mega swells from Nazare’ in Portugal to Australia’s Gold Coast over the past 10 days, an important grassroots club event was run under the radar along Durban’s Golden Mile last weekend. For the 70 surfers who took part in the annual Sea Harvest SA Interclub Championships at New Pier Beach they all approached the annual event with just as much enthusiasm and passion as the WSL stars in the big leagues.
North Swell Surf Club’s B Team scored another major upset and once again signalled a changing of the guard by scooping the gold medals on offer for the 12 clubs and 14 teams entered into this Surfing South Africa sanctioned event.
Chad du Toit successfully captained his team of young guns and New Pier locals James Ribbink, Karl Steen, Luke Thompson and Kayla Nogueira to a second successive victory in the championship over the Skulls Team (South Coast), North Swell A Team (New Pier) and Wave Wizards (Umhlanga).
With Du Toit’s charges winning the 2019 edition of the Sea Harvest Champs in Cape Town they also earned the right to host the Championship on their home surf and turf for this year’s event. And now with their back-to-back wins the Interclub Champs will once again be headed back to New Pier next year.
“It was really good to see our junior team win the title for the second year in a row,” said former WSL star Paul Canning who represented North Swell’s A Team.
Having surfed at the highest level on the world stage, Canning was also encouraged to see the how the sport of surfing has evolved and the success of the tag-team format.
“The Sea Harvest SA Interclub Championships is an amazing event in the way that it pulls surfers from across the country, from all backgrounds and walks of life, together on one stage,” said Canning.
“It’s not often that we have the opportunity to surf in a team environment and this event really brings out some amazing spirit and club pride.
“On the day I was really impressed to see teams like Sisonke, the Rising Stars and Surfers Not Street Children in action and I’m sure that it won’t be long before one of these teams takes out the title in the years to come.”
Balance of Results:
Equal fifth place: Surfers Brothers Movement Surf Club and North Coast Boardriders.
Equal seventh place: Sisonke Surf Club A Team, Sisonke Surf Club B Team and J Bay Surf Club
Equal tenth place: Surfers not Street Children Surf Club, South Shore Surf Club, Trafalgar Surf Club. Equal 13th place: Sea Harvest Rising Stars Surf Club and Ubuntu Surf Club. 15th place: Genesis Wave of Hope Surf Club.