Billabong Junior Series

Surfing South Africa
Golden Mile Durban South Africa
29 March - 1 April 2007

Durban’s Bay of Plenty to host second Billabong Junior Series event

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 21 March, 2007 : - - The Bay of Plenty on Durban’s famed Golden Mile beachfront will be awash with a couple of hundred of the country’s top junior surfers next weekend when the second event on the 2007 Billabong Junior Series will be held in the famed waves where Shaun Tomson developed his world beating surfing skills. 

Scheduled for Thursday to Sunday, 29 March to 1 April, the event offers more than R30 000 in total prize-money to the top competitors in Pro Junior (U20), U16, U14 and U12 boys and Pro Junior girls’ divisions.

The coveted event and series titles, now in their 11th year, continue to attract entries from the entire coastline of SA while the results of the Pro Junior divisions determine the five boys and the top girl who receive invitations to the annual Billabong ASP World Junior Championships in Australia – won by Durban’s Jordy Smith in January this year.

Smith, 19, will miss the Durban event as he is now campaigning on the ASP World Qualifying Series (WQS) in Australia, where he was SA’s highest placed surfer in the R550 000 Maitland Toyota Pro at Newcastle on the weekend, reaching the last 32 before bowing out in equal 25th position.

With last year’s Durban Pro Junior winner Damien Fahrenfort and runner-up Keegan Nel both no longer eligible for U20 events, all eyes will be on top seed Brandon Jackson. The Durban North resident secured a comfortable victory over unheralded Casey Grant (Scottburgh) in the first event at St Mikes on the KZN south coast last month to grab the early ratings lead and will be even more at home in the surf at the Bay of Plenty.

The rest of the top eight seeds will be determined not to let Jackson build up too big a lead and the likes of Rudy Palmboom Jnr (Bluff), Capetonians Brandon Roberts (Sun Valley) and Brett Shearer (Kommetjie), Durbanites Chad du Toit and Josh Redman, Winkelspruit’s Klee Strachan and Josch Schmeltzer (Westville) will all be aiming for the 1 000 ratings points awarded to the winner.

A string of excellent results, including victory at St Mikes, sees Tarryn Chudleigh (Kommetjie) head a quality field of SA’s top junior girls with her biggest challenge likely to come from the exceptionally talented Sarah Baum, the 13 year-old from Athlone Park who continues to impress at every level.

The highly touted trio of U16 series champ Shaun Joubert (Mossel Bay), Dale Staples (St Francis Bay) and Matthew Bromley (Kommetjie), who placed third in the U20’s at St Mikes, have a score to settle with Nic Godfrey (Cape St Francis) who aced them all last month.

And they will also be nervously eyeing the likes of Beyrick de Vries (Umhlanga), who moved up from the U14 ranks this year, Brett Palmboom (Umtentweni), Blake Freegard (Umdloti) and Indi Rooken-Smith (Mossel Bay), all of whom are capable of upsetting the form book.

Reigning U14 series champ Michael February (Kommetjie) looks a good bet to successfully defend the Durban event title he won last year but like all the boys in this age category, he will be hoping to finish ahead of Heidi Palmboom (Bluff) who made history by becoming the first girl to reach the final of an U14 event.

The phenomenal talent displayed by newcomers Dylan Lightfoot (Jeffreys Bay) and Slade Prestwich (Scottburgh) in last month’s event make the U12 division difficult to predict and established campaigners like series champ Max Armstrong (Kommetjie) and Josh Smit (Athlone Park) will be eager to impose themselves at the Bay.