BOS Cape Crown Presented by Billabong Pro Junior

BOS Cape Crown Presented by Billabong Pro Junior – Day 1 Results:

Max Elkington in action at the BOS Cape Crown presented by BIllabong Photo: Ian Thurtell

Cape Town surfers showed their form on the opening day of the BOS Cape Crown presented by Billabong, using their local knowledge at Long Beach in Kommetjie to outpoint their rivals and advance to the semi-finals of the junior men’s and women’s events

The World Surf League (WSL) Junior Qualifying Series (JQS) events got started under cloudless skies with a light offshore wind grooming the small 1 to 2-foot waves that improved as the tide dropped.

Kommetjie based competitors Ford van Jaarsveld, Ethan Fletcher and Eli Beukes and Durban’s Tide-Lee Ireland won the four Round 1 heats to advance to the quarterfinals along with their respective heat runners-up.

A similar pattern emerged from the quarterfinals of the JQS1,000 women’s event where Natasha van Greunen (Muizenberg) upset top seed and reigning WSL Africa champion Sophie Bell (Salt Rock) to win the first heat and Summer Sutton (Kommetjie) won the next as she and Tayla de Coning (East London) eliminated fourth seed Taghiti Gericke (Wilderness).

Third seed Kirsty McGillivray (Jeffreys Bay) and Sarah Ingram (Cape Town) advanced from Heat 3 and rankings leader Kayla Nogueira (uMhlanga) and Danica Stockigt (East London) joined them in Sunday’s semifinals from heat 4.

The junior men’s quarterfinals produced fireworks as top seed Adin Masencamp (Strand) posted the highest single ride of the day, an excellent 8.0 out of 10, to wrap up the heat win and advance to Sunday’s semis along with Van Jaarsveld, who ended runner-up.

They will be joined by fellow heat winners Joshe Faulkner (Jeffreys Bay), Koby Oberholzer (Warner Beach) and Beukes, along with the Elkington brothers – Jake and Max – from Kommetjie, and Saxton Randall (Durban)

Similar conditions and a slight increase in swell are expected for Sunday’s finals showdown and the action will be red hot with a total prize purse of R30,000 on offer> Rankings points from the event count towards the 2017 WSL Africa titles, the selection of the WSL Africa squad to attend the WSL World Junior Championships in Australia in January and for the 18-and-under titles in the 20^th annual Billabong Junior Series.

The BOS Cape Crown presented by Billabong also features 3A rated SAST events for U16, U14 and U12 boys and girls run by Surfing South Africa (SSA), the national controlling body for the sport

Organisers will meet at Kommetjie early on Sunday morning to decide when to start the contest and the champions in all events will be crowned at Long Beach shortly after the finals on Sunday afternoon.