O'Neill SA Jr Surfing Champs

Surfing South Africa
Port Elizabeth South Africa
26 - 30 September 2007

O'Neill SA Junior Surfing Champs under way in gale at Pollock Beach in Port Elizabeth

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 26 September, 2007 : - - Port Elizabeth lived up to its reputation as the Friendly City as it welcomed close to 200 surfers and officials in the 2007 O'Neill SA Junior Championships to the Pipe at Pollock Beach on Tuesday. But its other reputation as the Windy City certainly rang true, forcing surfers to compete against each other as well as battle a 50km easterly onshore gale and making life miserable for the judges in the tower.

Despite the washing machine type conditions there was some outstanding surfing from a number of the surfers representing the eight participating teams.

Top surfer on the day was defending Under 14 champion Michael February of Western Province whose 17,0 point heat score was matched by 13 year old Steven Sawyer of Eastern Province. Both February and Sawyer posted 9 and 8 point rides but February's 6 point third wave was just 0.50 better than Sawyer's third ride, giving the WP surfer bragging rights for Day One.

Other good scores in the Under 14 boys division came from Jeandre Blignault of Boland (14,75), David Van Zyl (KZN) 14,25 and Daniel Wilson of WP (12,50).

In the competitive Under 16 division, Southern Cape surfer Shaun Joubert and Brendon Gibbens of WP showed no sign of jet lag after a three day journey back from a surf trip to the Philippines which saw them arrive at the contest just in time to surf their heats. Both won in fine style with Joubert scoring a polished 14,75 and Gibbens a solid 13 points.

Other high scores in this division came from Blake Freegard of KZN (14,25), Matthew Bromley of WP (13,50) and O'Neill team rider JC Susan of WP who posted 11,40 points in his first round heat. Kyle Lane, the defending champion in the Under 18 division and KZN team mate Chad Du Toit each scored 15,25 points to top this division and Boland surfer Tommie Kruger was third on the points leaderboard with 14,75 points.

Despite finishing second behind du Toit, Jaco Steyn of WP, another on the Philippines trip, posted 13,50 points while Shawn Dennis of KZN was next highest with 12,75. Weather predictions for Day Two of this five day event indicate another day of gale force onshore winds on Thursday but Friday should herald an offshore wind which will clean up the surf for the last two days of the event.

Day Two will feature the first round of the U12 boys, the U14, U16 and U18 girls, and the U14, U16 and U18 boys’ second round. The O'Neill South African Junior Championships is a premier Surfing South Africa tournament which determines National Champions in the Under 18, Under 16, Under 14 and Under 12 age divisions for boys and girls and decides the winning provincial team each year.

The defending provincial champions are KwaZulu-Natal with Western Province, Boland, Border, Eastern Province, Southern Cape, Southern KZN and the SA Development Academy team all participating. The heats, daily information, pictures and results of the 2007 O'Neill SA Junior Championships are available online.

Previous reports:
# 1 : O'Neill S.A. Junior Surfing Champs set for Port Elizabeth
# 2 : Coming soon
# 3 : Coming soon
# 4 : Coming soon  

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