Young surfers show their talent
Blistering performances at second Future Legends coaching series event in Durban.
ANOTHER classic Future Legends Coaching Series event took place in Durban recently, and all invited surfers stood up to the challenges put forward by the South African Surfing Legends (SASL) team.
The only tangible way to ascertain the effectiveness of the South African Surfling Legends exciting and innovative Future Legends Coaching Series was to compare the surfers' performances in the second event against their performances and scores in the inaugural contest.
“There were significant improvements. The performances were up, generally, from all the competitors. It should also be noted that there was not a single drop-out from the first event, which signifies the value that the program has to the surfers, as well as their parents,” said SASL's Barry Campbell.
There were many concepts and ideas that materialised during the second mini-tournament, held in small, short-period south swell at Dairy Beach, with the finals being moved across to New Pier. One of the best was the video appraisals, led by Head Judge Jono Hutchison. By utilising the video playbacks, Jono succinctly explained in his presentation the difference between big moves and half moves. Seeing the visuals was obviously helpful to the surfers, and this came out in the water during some inspired performances thereafter.
Standouts of the day included U16 boys winner Koby Oberholzer from Warner Beach, Mitch Du Preez from East London who won the U13 boys division for the second time and U16 Girls winner Kirsty McGillivray from JBay.
There is also much excitement about the slot available into the JBU Supertrial presented by RVCA. The series winner of the U16 boys divison gets a wildcard slot into the JBU Supertrial, set to take place from 1 to 12 June at Supertubes.
The invite-only JBU Supertrial is arguably the most important local event on the calendar as it furnishes a wild-card into the World Championship Tour's event, the JBay Open. This is so important as in 1999 Australian surfer Joel Parkinson won the main event in JBay as a wildcard, and in 2006 Jordy Smith placed third in the same contest as a wildcard.
The third contest in the Future Legends Coaching Series will be on 19 March at New Pier in Durban.
