Surfing veteran Mark Occhilupo has made it through to the fourth round of the Breaka Burleigh Pro, mounting a successful return to the professional circuit on the Gold Coast today.

The 1999 world champion placed second in his four man heat this morning after coming out of retirement for the event.

In perfect, two-metres swells at Burleigh Heads, Occhilupo, 43, opened early with a 5.33 ride, later backing it up a strong 6.83 to advance behind local surfer Luke Dorrington

The final scores were: Dorrington 16.00, Occhilupo 12.16 with Chris Bennetts and Luke Cheadle finishing third and fourth consecutively.

In a match up that is sure to be a highlight of the event, Occhilupo will take on fellow veteran Nick Wood, 39, in the next round.

“I can’t believe I’ve drawn Nick Wood in the next round – that is so good,” Occilupo said.

“Nick is a great surfer and it will be amazing to surf against him again especially here at Burleigh Heads. Bring it on.”

Both Occilupo and Wood are competing in the event as wild cards.

The pair will face off in round four about 8.25am tomorrow.
Sourced via brisbanetimes.com.au

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After a vote of the 24 competitors, the annual Mavericks surf competition was called off. For now, anyway.

“Maverick’s surfers had been hoping to capitalize on a giant northwest swell that hit Hawaii on Monday, producing clean, ideal conditions and wave faces up to 40 feet,” the Chronicle reports. “The waves will arrive on schedule here Wednesday, but as the surfers took their vote, they noted the National Weather Service predicting southwest winds at 15-25 knots, shifting to westerly at 10-15 in the afternoon.”

These conditions, it seems, aren’t choice for surfers, “producing contrary, onshore conditions.”
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STEPHANIE Gilmore has won a third consecutive world title – and Layne Beachley has set the record straight, saying there is no animosity between the champion Australian surfers.

Gilmore’s hat-trick of crowns was secured at the Gidget Pro at Sunset Beach in Hawaii at the weekend when, before the final, she was told that other results had gone her way and the world title was hers. Gilmore paddled out for the final and smiled all the way through it.

Catching perfect waves in Hawaii having just retained the championship, knowing nothing could take it away from her … dolphins have looked less joyous in an ocean than Gilmore during a final ultimately won by Hawaiian Carissa Moore.

“I was sitting there watching the semi-finals with my music on and gosh, I don’t know, it was just crazy,” she said. “I’m in disbelief right now, I really am. I just had my music on, some old Pearl Jam songs. Something instrumental. It was either Pearl Jam or Bjork. I didn’t even know the scenarios because I didn’t want to know.

”I didn’t think the world title would be decided here. But then the other girls started getting knocked out, the girls right behind me in the race. I was still pretty oblivious then all these photographers started turning up and I was like, what’s happening?’ That moment, oh my gosh. A thousand different things start going through your head and then there’s nothing.

”You just start floating. It’s an amazing feeling, like nothing I can put into words too well. You’re just so light and happy.”

Gilmore, 21, raised eyebrows ahead of her debut season when she predicted she could win 10 world titles. Some applauded her confidence. Others decried a supposed lack of respect for Beachley, the face of the women’s tour, the veteran who was about to paddle off into retirement with an unprecedented seven world crowns. Gilmore was supposedly disrespectful and Beachley was portrayed as one of the aggrieved.

“That wasn’t the case at all,” Beachley said from Phuket in Thailand. “You need that ambition. You need goals to keep pushing yourself and the bigger the goals, the bigger your desire is going to be. It was a fairly auspicious thing for her to say, but why not?

”It might have put too much pressure on her but she’s growing, maturing and learning to excel as world champion. She’s flourishing and I’m really, really proud of her. Outside her surfing, her biggest asset is her attitude, her smile. She’s a good girl. It’ll be interesting to see how far she takes it. When Steph said she wanted to win 10, it reminded me of me, to be honest.

”I’m proud that I retired with a record she wanted to go after. When I won my first event I was telling everyone I’d be a multiple world champion and people back then were saying, ‘Whoa, hang on, you can’t say that.’ I admire Steph for backing herself. Good on her.”
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BURLEIGH Heads surfer Jay `Bottle’ Thompson secured his ticket for the 2010 World Tour after finishing third at the Reef Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa yesterday.

Thompson finished third in the final of the six-star prime-rated World Qualifying Series event pushing him from 14th in the ratings to sixth overall, well within the cut for next year’s top tier.

Thompson has been competing on the World Tour this year as an injury wildcard, competing in every event.

But his results have not been good enough so far to guarantee automatic requalification.

“This kind of solidified my campaign for the tour next year, so I’m frothing,” said 27-year-old Thompson.

“This year and last year I’ve been (on the Dream Tour) but I’ve been kind of bogging, so I really wanted to get back there and give it a 100 percent next year.”

Hawaiian local Joel Centeio (14.76) took out the opening event of the prestigious Triple Crown, ahead of former world champion CJ Hobgood (13.74), Thompson (12.17) and Tahitian Alain Riou (5.27)

The upset of the day occurred in the quarter-finals, with the form surfer of the event and Coolangatta world title contender Joel Parkinson, bowing out prematurely.

While the Reef Hawaiian Pro did not count towards the world title race, Parkinson had been the standout, posting the two highest heat scores of the event as well as the only perfect 10-point ride for a deep barrel in the round before the quarters.

Parkinson fell victim to a wave-starved quarter-final, managing just a combined wave score of 9.34 in the heat, which was won by eventual champion Centeio.
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Clutching her surfboard, Guo Shujuan strolls down a beach on southern China’s Hainan island and glides into waves that pound a shoreline littered with rubbish and broken bottles.

Surf’s up, Chinese style.

China may have one of the world’s longest coastlines, but surfing has barely made a ripple in a country where a deep tan is a badge of the peasantry, water pollution is rife and outdoor sports are still coming into their own.

But Guo, a 23-year-old tour guide from the city of Guilin, also in the south, embodies the potential of the sport in the Asian giant, with a rising generation of millions of thrill-seeking youths.

“Two years ago I had never even heard of surfing in China,” the cocoa-skinned Guo, who took up the sport a year ago, said after a session in the waves.

“I thought, why surf? What is so fun about standing up on a board? But once I tried it, I thought, wow, how cool”.

In the great surfers’ tradition of seeking out undiscovered breaks, China may be one of the final frontiers, and its potential lies largely in Hainan, a tropical island province being massively developed for tourism.

Most of the credit for launching Hainan’s fledgling surf scene goes to Brendan Sheridan, a 30-year-old American engaged in a personal — and somewhat quixotic — mission to bring the sport to China.

An amateur surfer from California who previously taught English in China, Sheridan most recently worked at a Philadelphia bank processing electronic payments — “a crummy office job looking at spreadsheets all day,” he said.

Intrigued by the thought of China’s surf potential, he quit his US day job three years ago and came to Hainan, where he eventually started Surfing Hainan, which organises lessons and day trips to the island’s breaks.

Its waves will never rival those in Hawaii or California, but Hainan was Sheridan’s choice because he felt it had China’s best surf, occasionally large enough to challenge even some advanced surfers.

Best of all, while famed surf breaks are usually mobbed, Hainan’s waves might be among the least crowded places in China due to the sport’s novelty here.

“That’s what Hainan has to offer people who enjoy surfing. The crowd factor, no crowds at all,” said the lean and tan Sheridan.

That could change.

Sheridan’s clientele has doubled over the past year and, in a sign of the sport’s progress here, the Sheridan-organised Hainan Open — China’s first and only surfing competition — takes place this weekend for the second time.

Top surfwear designers have signed on as sponsors and the number of contestants grew to more than 40 this year from 18 last year, mostly expats living in China.

“It’s definitely growing with a middle class in China that has disposable income and is learning how to have fun in life,” Sheridan said.

But it hasn’t quite “caught on like wildfire,” he admits.

For starters, the lack of a Chinese beach sport tradition means Sheridan must first teach many of his aspiring surfers to swim.

And he sees little sign yet that Hainan locals are taking to the sport, which he views as vital to establishing a lasting surf culture.

“It’s still viewed as something crazy foreigners do … but once you get that first generation of Chinese surfers, then I think it will become more accepted,” he said.

Another hurdle is the environment. China is among the world’s most polluted countries and its coastlines are no exception, discouraging water sports.

But Angela Wang, a business consultant from Beijing who declared herself “addicted” after her first lesson under Sheridan, expressed hope that the environmentalism that follows surfing could be a catalyst for cleaner beaches.

“If you want to have fun with nature, you need to be friends with it,” she said.

The sport must also overcome the deep cultural aversion to tanned skin — a group of tourists from Shanghai brought to the beach by Sheridan on a recent day spent more time seeking shade than waves.

But Guo, the tour guide from Guilin, believes that will slowly change.

“Now more and more Chinese people see it as cool to be outdoors and that being dark is healthy,” she said.
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Pete Devries grew up on a beach near Tofino where he learned to surf in snow storms, often in wet suits so cheap he had to wear two to stay warm.

Twenty years of braving British Columbia’s icy waves paid off on the weekend when Mr. Devries, who rarely enters competitions, astonished a field of top international competitors to become the first Canadian to win a major professional surfing event.

That a relative unknown did it at home, on a beach where his dad taught him to ride a board when he was 7, left Mr. Devries and others stunned.

“I guess I’m elated. I’m still kind of in shock,” Mr. Devries said Sunday, after celebrating his unexpected win of the $20,000 first prize at the O’Neill Cold Water Classic Canada by taking a walk on the beach with his girlfriend, Lisa Hasse, and his dog, Nai’a.

Held for the first time in Canada, the event is one of five cold-water tournaments hosted annually by the Association of Surfing Professionals, one of the world’s leading surf organizations. The others are in Tasmania, Scotland, South Africa and California.

The competition drew more than 120 top surfers to Tofino, and few expected a local boy to storm to victory on the big Pacific breakers that pound ashore there.

“To be honest, I didn’t even know who Pete was,” the great Australian surfer, Jay Thompson, said after he lost to Mr. Devries in the final heat.

The field that Mr. Devries, 26, bested during the week-long competition included professional surfers with big reputations: Dusty Payne of Hawaii, Damien Fahrenfort of South Africa and Adam Melling of Australia.

Mr. Devries used to participate in international competitions in the U.S., but gave it up several years ago to concentrate on refining his technique and building a career as a “free rider,” a surfer who makes a living endorsing brand names. He is featured in magazine photo shoots and videos, and is known as one of Canada’s best technical surfers.

But he is not known on the world surfing circuit.

Mr. Devries said his lack of competitive experience may have worked for him, as so little was expected of him that he felt no pressure.

“I just tried to have fun,” he said.

The tension was there for his fans, however, who crowded the beach to watch Mr. Devries, aware that he is a talented surfer who can pull off stunning moves.

One of his signature turns is called a layback snap, in which he rockets up the wave face, then reverses suddenly by sticking his trailing arm in the water and using it as a pivot point.

“Don’t give up at this point because sometimes miracles can happen,” he says in tips he posts online to help other surfers.

He may have been following his own advice during the contest, knocking off one imposing challenger after another.

Tension built as Mr. Devries, who as a boy washed dishes in the local bakery and sold boards in the local surf shop, rose through the rankings all week.

“I’ll be honest. I was so nervous I could barely watch,” said Noah Cohen, a long-time friend of Mr. Devries and a leading Tofino surfer, who was eliminated in the quarter finals.

“A lot of us pretty much were in tears,” he said of those who cheered Mr. Devries through the week.

Allister Fernie, who owns the Storm Surf shop in Tofino, credits Mr. Devries success to talent and hard work.

Mr. Fernie recalled watching as a 13-year-old Mr. Devries tried to stay warm in the winter surf by wearing two thin wet suits. The water off Tofino is about 6 C year-round.

“I said, ‘Dude, we’ve got to get you some better gear,’” said Mr. Fernie, who later became one of his sponsors.

Surfers are judged on their two best waves during a 30-minute session, with scores ranging from 0 to a perfect 10. When his final turn came Mr. Devries nailed it, earning scores of seven and nine.

As Mr. Devries came in, two fists raised over his head, Mr. Cohen and others ran into the cold surf to wrap him in a Canadian flag.

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” Mr. Devries said.

Despite the big win he has no plans to rush off and join the world circuit. He and Ms. Hasse have a baby on the way and he wants to stay close to home.
Sourced via theglobeandmail.com

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Experience is priceless for Australian surfing star Mick Fanning in the tight race for the world title.

Fanning leads long-time friend and compatriot Joel Parkinson by just 44 points ahead of this week’s second-last round, the Rip Curl Pro Search tournament in Portugal.

According to the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), Fanning is the only competitor who can wrap up the overall title in Peniche, a fishing village about an hour north of Lisbon.

Nine-time winner and reigning champion Kelly Slater lies sixth and is among those also still in contention when the Pro Search starts on Monday.

Amid all the pressure, Fanning can draw on his overall win two years ago, the first time an Australian had won the world title since Mark Occhilupo in 1999.

“That was one thing I learnt in 2007, having guys like Kelly in the race,” Fanning said.

“You sit there and you don’t have that question ‘can you do it?’ – you’ve done it before.

“You definitely do draw on that and maybe some tricks that worked back then might work this time.

“I guess it’s the same as footy where the big players, it doesn’t matter how poor their form is coming into a State Of Origin or a grand final, they know what to draw on.”

While Fanning has confidence in his ability to handle the pressure, he is also far too experienced to talk up his chances for the world title.

He only has to look at Parkinson, his good mate since childhood, to see how quickly everything can change.

Halfway through this year’s tour, Parkinson was considered a certainty for his first world title.

Then he suffered an ankle injury while surfing in Bali.

Parkinson has played down the seriousness of the problem, but since the injury he has had three second-round exits.

Adding to the intrigue, event officials were unable to explain why Parkinson did not attend Sunday’s pre-event media conference.

As Parkinson’s title charge has stalled, Fanning has stormed back into contention with two wins and a ninth.

But Fanning knows his mate remains a dangerous opponent, even with a wonky ankle.

Also, the surfers lose their two worst results for the final standings and after this adjustment, Parkinson still leads Fanning.

“I expect what he does every event. He puts his heart and soul into every event,” Fanning said of Parkinson.

“I don’t know why he isn’t here (at the media conference), I wouldn’t have a clue, I will probably text him later.

“If I had a shocker, Joel could win it right here. If you have a look at the adjusted ratings, Joel is actually ahead of me.”
Sourced via foxsports.com.au

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We are looking for your nominations for the best looking sport babes in the world. The nominations can include sport babes from around the globe, from any country, from any sporting code-the more the merrier.

Nominations close on 30 September 2009.

Send your nominations to to us by filling out the form below. You may nominate up to 3 athletes per time.

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South Africans Bianca Buitendag­ and Nikita Robb posted stellar­ performances to reach the finals of ASP Pro junior girls events, in France and the United States respectively, last weekend.

Buitendag (15), from Victoria Bay, was one of the stand-outs in the Grade two Oakley Pro Junior at Lacanau, on the Bay of Biscay coast of France, taking on and defeating the cream of Europe’s 20-and-under female surfers in small 0,6? metre to one-metre waves to reach the final four in the 40-strong field.

A lack of waves in the final, and an amazing last three-minute performance that saw ASP World Pro junior champion Pauline Ado (FRA) vault from fourth to first with two excellent rides, resulted in Buitendag, described as the “South African wunderkind” in event media releases, finishing fourth overall with prize money of R2?400.

Tanika Hoffman (Kommetjie), the only­ other South African surfer in the event, eventually lost out in the quarterfinals after starting strongly in the first two rounds, ending equal ninth overall.

Meanwhile in the Pacific Ocean, East London’s Nikita Robb cruised through a talented line-up of American and Hawaiian­ competitors to finish fourth in the Grade 4 Supergirl Pro Junior at Oceanside in California.

Referred to as the “international sensation from South Africa”, Robb (20), from East London battled to find waves with scoring potential in the tiny 0,3?metre to 0,6 metre windswept waves for the final and ended behind winner Courtney Conlogue (U.S.), Malia Manuel (HAW) and Sage Erickson (U.S.), collecting prize-money of R13?000.

Robb is ranked 13th on the ASP Women’s world qualifying series (WQS), the highest of the SA contingent and narrowly ahead of fellow East Londoner Rosanne Hodge, who is 14th.

With just two WQS events remaining on the women’s 2009 schedule, a five star in Rio de Janeiro starting on October 7 and a six star at Haleiwa in Hawaii in November (still listed as tentative), the ratings tallies are close and the pair are still in with a chance of reaching the top six in the year-end rankings, and automatically qualifying for the 2010 ASP Women’s world tour.
Sourced via witness.co.za

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New Zealand will host the 2010 ISA World Junior Surfing Championship PDF Print E-mail
Written by Editor at SurferToday.com
Tuesday, 04 August 2009 15:19

Surfing New Zealand

It was announced today at the International Surfing Association’s Annual General Meeting that the 8th Edition of the Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championship will be held in the perfect waves of New Zealand.

The dates have been set. The event will begin on January 20 with the Parade of the Nations and the Sands of the World Ceremony with the competition starting on the 21st and ending on the 28th.

The event will be held at the famous surfing beach of Piha in Auckland. It will be organized by Surfing New Zealand, the National Governing Body of Surfing in the country, recognized by the ISA and sponsored, of course, by Quiksilver.

“We’re really happy to announce that New Zealand will be the 2010 location for the Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championship. It is an amazing location with perfect waves and a great surfing culture. It’s really important to notice that this is the first time after more than 25 years that the ISA holds an event of this magnitude in the Australasia zone”, said the ISA President, Fernando Aguerre.

“Securing this top ranked world event is fantastic for the city of Auckland, and for the sport of surfing in New Zealand,” says, Greg Townsend, CEO of Surfing New Zealand which organized and led the bid process. “We are excited to have been given this huge opportunity to showcase our unique culture and our beautiful environment to the world while at the same time giving New Zealanders a taste of the very best the sport of surfing can deliver.”

Luke Watson, Marketing Operations Manager of Quiksilver Australia, said: “We are very excited to have the Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championship in New Zealand. NZ is such and amazing place, great waves and awesome weather that time of the year. Every body involved will have a ball.”

The 1982 edition of the ISA World Surfing Championship was held in the Gold Coast of Australia. Tom Curren won the Open division, Jenny Gill won in the Women´s, Bryce Ellis won the Junior, Michael Novakov won the Kneeboard and the Champion Team was Australia.

The best junior surfing of the world will be in New Zealand in January 2010. Enjoy it!
Sourced via surfertoday.com

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