iLembe’s Ella van der Made and Marcello Zedde surfed their way to national gold medals at the Sea Harvest South African Junior Championships last week.

Competing at Jeffrey’s Bay from Wednesday to Saturday, the two rising stars – along with 18 other iLembe Surf Riders athletes – took on the country’s best junior surfers in the battle for national titles.

Ella opened her U12 Girls campaign on Wednesday with a dominant heat win, which included a near-perfect single wave score of 9.67 out of a possible 10. That performance earned her direct qualification for Saturday morning’s final against Summer Harding (Nelson Mandela Bay), Skyla Nadauld (Ugu) and Adriana Canning (eThekwini).

After a quiet opening wave, Ella quickly found her rhythm, landing back-to-back scores of 7.0 and 6.77 to take the lead, a position she held to the end. She claimed her first national title by nearly three points.

In the U14 Boys division, Marcello delivered an almost flawless run, winning his Round 1, Round 2 and quarter-final heats. His first real challenge came in the semi-final, where he advanced in second place behind Mayah Douglas (Eden), edging out Slayde Shooter (Nelson Mandela Bay) by just 0.5 points.

That set up a high-stakes final against Douglas, Valdemar Gwenin and Finn Coates-Kolnik (both Cape Town). Marcello’s consistency in small surf conditions proved decisive and a combined score of 11.53 was enough to hold off a late charge from Gwenin, securing victory by just 0.29 points.

It marks Marcello’s second national title, following his U12 Boys win in 2023.

“I’m super stoked to be a two time South African junior champion and honoured to have my name added to the trophy alongside past champions Mathew McGillivray and Luke Thompson,” said Zedde.

The only other iLembe surfer to reach a final was Maxine Kauffman, who finished fourth in the U16 Girls division. Find full results at liveheats.com.

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