ISA world surfing games

Hi Guys and Gels,

I am sure you have all heard the final results and the achievements of the Junior team in Ecuador, I know the news is a bit late but this is what the news is from inside the camp.

We arrived early and quickly acclimatised to the weather, accommodation, waves and food. Having arrived early would help put us in a positive frame of mind knowing we had more time practising at the contest arena, it also allowed us to have our competition with New Zealand.

Every year S.A surf against NZ in a warm up event before the world games. This year for the first time in four years we beat them, we not only beat them we absolutely annihilated them. Shaun Joubert the only U/18 to make the final won the division, we got 1st and 2nd in the U/16 and 1st, 2nd, 3rd in the girls U/18 division. Team S.A went on to get a 1st and 2nd in the tag team which led to a convincing win over the All Blacks, they literally went home with their tail between their legs and we went home with spirits high.

It was a grueling 8 day event and every single team member would contribute in some shape or form to the end result. The waves at Le Farre were very consistent we only had one day where we battled for surf due to the high tide, during this time we took part in the tag team event where we placed 2nd in the semi final to secure us a spot in the tag team final to be held on the last day. Without Matt Bromley in the tag team we would never have made the final, in the semi final we tactically sent him to the point as our power surfer and he continued to blow up scoring a 9 and two 8 point rides.

It all went down to the wire, team S.A on the second last day was lying third and in contention for the title with five surfers still remaining in the event. Unfortunately it was not to be our day and we lost four kids going into the last day.

We finished 6th overall one better than last year although accumulating a lot more points as a team, we were proud to have a finalist in Davey Brand who finished a well deserved 3rd overall. We also received a silver medal in the tag team finals, a true testament of our sheer determination as a nation to never give up.

Stand outs for me were Shaun Jobert who placed highest out of the South Africans in the U/18 division who placed 8th overall, Bianca Buitendag finished a convincing 11th overall and was not finished kicking butt and only got knocked out due to some hard core hassling from the two Americans. Davey Brand did us really proud by finishing 3rd overall and was on fire the entire event, consistency proving to be the way to win and ISA world junior title.
Well done team we are all very proud of your effort.