Jordy Smith : photo Kirstin/ASP Covered Images

Team News

South Africa update: Girls go Euro, Smith in Rookie of the year position

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 23 July, 2008 : - - Rudy Palmboom was one of the stars of the Round 144 in the Honda US Open of Surfing presented by O’Neill as the huge field revelled in the glassy three-to-four foot (1 metre) waves on offer at Huntington Beach Pier.

The teenager from the Bluff who turns 20 next month posted an outstanding 9.43 score out of 10 on one of his early rides and followed that up with another solid 7.67 pointer to earn a heat tally of 17.10 and progress to the next round in the 6-Star rated ASP World Qualifying Series (WQS) event.

“I’m stoked because the waves here are actually similar to the waves I surf back home,” Palmboom said. “There’s a nice push out there today and usually Huntington is pretty weak. I had fun.” Benefiting from great results in the first half of his rookie season campaigning on the WQS, Palmboom is rated 79th out of 771 going into this event and will enjoy preferential seeding for the remainder of the year.

Already into the prize-money and guaranteed a minimum haul of 563 ratings points, he takes on fellow Saffa Greg Emslie (East London) along with Dustin Barca (HAW) and Justin Mujica (POR) in the round of 96 with the top two in the heat progressing to the last 48.

“This is my first full year on the ASP WQS,” Palmboom said. “I’m heading to Japan after this event and working out on the WQS for qualification for the 2009 ASP World Tour.”

Compatriots Antonio Bortoletto (Durban) and Gavin Roberts (Scottburgh) were not so fortunate and bowed out of what is touted as the world’s biggest surfing event. Current WQS No. 2 David Weare (Durban) is up against Damien Fahrenfort (Kommetjie) in the Round of 96, with Jordy Smith, the only one of the four South African World Tour campaigners to enter the event, also seeded directly into that round courtesy of a sponsor’s wildcard.

The men’s event concludes on Sunday 27 July

SA girls make waves in Europe

South Africa’s female surfers continue to impress in international events with 14 year-old Bianca Buitendag from George the latest to step onto the podium with an excellent second place finish in the Grade 2 Roxy Pro Junior event in Biarritz, France last week.

Competing in her first Pro Junior event in foreign waters, Buitendag blasted her way past a host of the world’s top 20-and-younger stars, including Mr Price Pro runner-up Pauline Ado (FRA), winning every heat she contested on her way to the final and posting an outstanding 17.0 point total in her quarterfinal.

The only girl to outscore Buitendag in the event was Carissa Moore, the Hawaiian prodigy who at the age of 15 has finished second and third in the Roxy Pro Gold Coast over the past two years, defeating the reigning ASP Women’s World Champion on both occasions.

“I am stoked, this is the best result of my life,” Buitendag said. “It was very challenging to surf with the best including Carissa (Moore). It is a great confidence boost and I am sure it will help for the next contest in South Africa next week.” Fellow 14 year-old Sarah Baum from Athlone Park was the only other SA girl in the event and she finished a creditable equal 13th after losing out in the quarters.

Baum also competed in the Roxy ASP Women’s World Longboard Surfing Championships where she was ousted in Round 3 by Joy Monahan (HAW) who went on to claim the 2008 World Title.

Roxy Towill from Kommetjie was also defeated in Round 3 of the longboard event when she was outscored by 2007 World Champion Jennifer Smith (AUS).

Nikita Robb secures finals berth at Huntington Beach

East London’s Nikita Robb has qualified for the final in the ASP Grade-2 S3 Supergirl Pro Junior event being staged in conjunction with the US Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach in California.

Competing in a stacked field that included current ASP Women’s WQS No 1 Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS), who Robb ousted from the event in the semifinals, the South African finished second behind ASP North America Pro Junior Champion Courtney Conlogue, in both the quarters and the semis to advance to the final.

The four-person final will be run on Saturday 26 July, just before the US Open of Surfing Women’s final, and Robb will again face Conlogue along with Sage Erickson (USA) and Coco Ho (HAW) for the US$3 000 (approx R22 500) winner’s paycheque.

Robb is also competing in the 6-Star rated Open event along with fellow Saffas Tarryn Chudleigh (Kommetjie), Tammy-Lee Smith (Shaka’s Rock) and current WQS No. 2 Rosanne Hodge (East London).

The event got underway on Wednesday and Chudleigh, in her rookie year on the WQS and the only one of the quartet not seeded into the Round of 48, struggled to find the waves with high scoring potential in the typical Huntington Beach close-out conditions and was eliminated in her opening encounter.

Jordy Smith takes the lead in the Rookie of the Year stakes on ASP World Tour

Jordy Smith’s 9th place finish in the Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay last week saw the 20 year-old Durbanite move from 19th to 16th spot on the 2008 ASP World Tour ratings, swapping places with rival Dane Reynolds (USA) in the chase for the prestigious Rookie of the Year stakes.

Reynolds, who was surfing at Jeffreys Bay for the first time, suffered a shock defeat in Round 2 at the hands of Heitor Alves (BRA), another rookie, to finish the event in equal 33rd place.

The business end of the JBay event was also unusual in that all of the top eight seeds reached the quarterfinals, the top four qualified for the semis, the top 2 contested the final and the top seed won, making it a perfectly seeded event.

Two records were set during the event, the first being Taylor Knox’s (USA) two wave heat tally of 19.70 out of 20, the highest ever recorded at Supertubes and won the 37 year-old oldest competitor in the event the Nixon WTA award of a custom handcrafted timepiece valued at US$10 000.

The second record was Kelly Slater’s fourth JBay event title. Australians Mick Fanning and Jake Patterson have each won two ASP World Tour events at JBay, with Patterson the only surfer to have won back-to-back titles (2001 & 2002) in the 23 editions of the ASP rated event.

Scoring a perfect 10 point ride was again proved to be no guarantee of a heat win at Supertubes when Joel Parkinson (AUS) finished second behind Knox in Round 1 despite recording a 10 and an 8.0.

Previous examples of this occurred in the inaugural WCT event in 1996 when both Slater and Knox posted perfect scores before Slater went on to capture his first JBay crown and in 2004 when uber-wildcard Sean Holmes opened his account with a perfect score before veteran point-break expert Danny Wills (AUS) came back to clinch a quarterfinal victory.

By winning at JBay, Slater also tied Martin Potter’s record of winning four of the first five events of the season. Potter, who travelled on a British passport despite growing up and honing his surfing talent in Durban, went on to win the 1989 ASP World Title.

In 2008 Slater remains the only member of the ASP World Tour to have won an event, the Billabong Pro Tahiti, the third event of the year, having been won by wildcard Bruno Santos (BRA). In 1989, then reigning World Champion Barton Lynch (AUS) won the second event of the season, the O’Neill/IMB Masters in Cronulla, Australia.

Upcoming ASP events

World Tour Men
Jul 30-Aug 10            Rip Curl Pro Search                                   $320 000         ‘Somewhere’

World Tour Women
Aug 28-Sep 1            Rip Curl Pro Mademoiselle                         $85,000            Hossegor, Landes-France

WQS Men
Jul 29-Aug 3              Yumeya Billabong Pro Tahara                  $135,000          Tahara, Japan

WQS Women
Jul 31-Aug 3              Billabong Girls Cascais Festival               $30,000            Cascais, Portugal

Pro Junior  
Jul 31-Aug 3              Island Style Pro Junior                              $6 500             Sopelana, Spain

www.aspafrica.com 

Survey: Map Surfing’s future 

More African Surfing News available here
Check the latest Africa Surf Reports and Forecasts

New! B2B News ASBE-Surf   |  Receive News-Alerts

Life's a Beach Communications

Team - Surfersvillage