Hawaiian Luke Tema and Basque Janire Gonzalez Etxabarri scored big in tricky conditions to claim men’s and women’s victory at the O’Neill SMTH Shapes Ballito Pro Junior.

Competing on Wednesday and Thursday (June 25 and 26) in occasionally windy two- and three-foot surf, the international competitors looked right at home on North Coast shores.

The Ballito Pro Junior was the third stop on the World Surf League Africa Junior Qualifying Series (JQS), open to U20 surfers and offering 1 000 JQS points for the winners.

Eighteen-year-old Tema, who hails from Hawaii’s famous North Shore, enjoyed an unbelievably consistent run through the men’s competition.

He won both of his heats and the semi- and quarter-finals with solid scores of between 14.47 and 15.50.

That set him up for a final against three South African hopefuls in the form of Buffalo City’s Josh Malherbe and Cape Town’s Connor Slijpen and Levi Epenetos.

It was a two-horse race for most of the final between Tema and Malherbe, who traded leads with wave scores of between 5.33 and 6.67.

Heading into the final two minutes, Tema sat on 12.0 points, with Malherbe trailing by just 0.50, setting up a tense finale.

Malherbe threw everything at his final wave, delivering two slick cutbacks, but it was not enough to overcome the gap and Tema was crowned a deserved victor in his first South African competition.

Slijpen finished third and Epenetos fourth.

Twenty-year-old Gonzalez Etxabarri, from the Basque Country in northern Spain, also delivered an unbeaten run on her way to victory in the women’s bracket.

She comfortably won her heat and quarter- and semi-finals to qualify for a packed final against Cape Town’s Remi Fourie, Brazil’s Sophie Medina and Kiara Goold from French Polynesia.

Contrary to first-timer Tema, Gonzalez Etxabarri could draw on plenty of experience in Ballito last year, where she finished fifth in the Ballito Pro Junior, fourth in the Ballito Open – a Qualifying Series (QS) event – and ninth in the premier Ballito Pro Challenger Series competition.

Her younger sister Annette also grabbed a podium place in Ballito last year.

That past knowledge proved crucial in a low-scoring final, as Gonzalez Etxabarri worked diligently to register good wave scores as the wind picked up and made things difficult.

Her combined overall score of 9.67 was, while low for traditional finals, enough to claim victory by more than three points over Medina.

Fourie finished third and Goold fourth.

With the completion of the Ballito Pro Junior and the O’Neill SMTH Shapes Rookie Rippers earlier in the week on Tuesday, junior surfing is now complete for this year’s event.

Both Gonzalez Etxabarri and Tema will feature in the next event on the Ballito Pro calendar – the Ballito Open presented by Flojos – which will kick off on June 27 and run until June 29.

The main Ballito Pro presented by O’Neill Challenger Series event will then take over from June 30 until July 6.

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