Surfers from all parts of South Africa are at Lower Point in Jeffreys Bay until October 9, for the 25th edition of the Sea Harvest South African Junior Championships presented by SMTH Shapes and supported by the Department of Sports, Art, and Culture.
The SA Junior Championships will showcase the best junior surfers from all over the country who have qualified for this prestigious tournament through demanding selection trials run by their respective organisations.
At stake are individual national titles for u/12, u/14, u/16 and u/18 boys and girls, along with the coveted Freedom Cup, which is awarded to the district whose team members accumulate the highest points totals across all age divisions.
On October 5, the competition’s first wave was ridden by u/18 surfer Dan Emslie from Buffalo City. It was a long ride and Emslie banked a 5.17 to open the scorecards for the event. He soon followed it up with an even better 6.67 and went all the way to win the day’s opening heat.
Jeffreys Bay is a historic venue and has hosted many successful surfing competitions, from Championship Tour events and national longboarding contests to this event, the Sea Harvest South African Junior Surfing Championships.
It is a surf location that is an idyllic venue for a tournament. Lower Point delivers long, highly contestable right-handers conducive to high-performance competitive surfing. It is one of the most consistent surf locations on the coast.
Other top performances in this u/18 round were James Ribbink (EThekwini Surfriders Association) 11.50, Joel Dace (Nelson Mandela Bay Surfriders) 10.33, Luke van Wyk (Cape Town Surfriders) 13.67, and Kyra Bennie (Cape Winelands), 11.73.
For the u/16 boy’s division, an onshore southerly wind started puffing, and the waves remained highly contestable throughout. Top surfers in this division included Simon Winter (Cape Town Surfriders) 14.44, Joel Fowles (Buffalo City) 10.50 and Nate Colby (Ethekweni Surfriders) 15.50.
The long day’s surfing finished off with the first round of the u/12 girls with the perennial stand-out, Leah Lepront (UGU) winning the first heat with relative ease and Mikayla Jefferis (Ethekweni) taking out the win in the day’s final heat.
In addition to the Freedom Cup and individual titles, several speciality awards are up for grabs which include, the Loud and Proud Team Spirit award, awarded to the team that shows the most spirit at the event and a male and female Surfer of the Contest will also be announced at the award ceremony on Sunday, October 9.
The highly competitive u/14 boy’s heats hit the water as the wind turned back to offshore southwest, and there were some flawless waves to be had in the high tide conditions. Josh Malherbe (Buffalo City) won his heat convincingly, and Rory Dace (Nelson Mandela Bay) was another stand-out.
The entire event is being streamed live via the SuperSports School app. Find the app on your app store and register.
It can also be viewed via the website – https://live.supersportschools.com/home.
You must first register to watch the live feed and all heats are available for replays.
The event results and schedule can be tracked via Live Heats https://www.liveheats.com/events/53342/schedule
TCS WiFi has supplied high-speed Internet for organisers and officials, as well as a complimentary hot spot for competitors and spectators.
Complimentary high-resolution images are available for media outlets on request.
