Sophie Bell owns the winning waves
The 16-year-old surfer handled the challenging conditions with ease
Salt Rock’s golden girl of surfing, Sophie Bell achieved a rare double on Monday when she won both the Women’s and Junior Women’s events at the Buffalo City Surf Pro at Nahoon Reef in East London.
The 16-year-old surfer handled the challenging conditions with ease and her stellar feat in the World Surf League (WSL) rated event was all the more dramatic when a shark was spotted.
The Woman’s final was halted after spectators saw a Thresher shark leaping out of the ocean less than 100 metres from the finalists.
The event was immediately put on hold and Bell and her opponent, Australia’s Tayla Hanak made their way to shore.
The shark moved away from the event site and contest director and WSL Africa operations manager Colin Fitch consulted with the competitors who decided to continue.
While Bell did not re-enter the surf as she was bleeding from a cut on her knee, Hanak was ferried back to the lineup but could not find the 5.65 point score she required to grab victory in the one and a half minutes remaining after the restart.
“It is so crazy, I am super, super stoked to win both events,” said Bell.
“That shark incident was the scariest moment of my life. All the spectators were shouting and luckily I had just ridden a wave and was quite close to the rocks so I just paddled straight in. I did not go out again but luckily I still won. It was a big surprise winning the Women’s event, the more heats I got through the more shocked I was, but it feels so good to be back to winning ways.”
Earlier the 2016 WSL Africa Junior Women’s champion dominated the JQS1,000 rated event for women 18 and under, winning her quarterfinal, semifinal and the four-person final matchups.
The win moved her into the lead in the Junior Women’s rankings after two events, and she was also in second place on the Women’s ranking’s leaderboard.
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