DURBAN North’s Hayley Nixon ended 2019 on a high after being crowned the women’s champion in the World Surf Ski League. The league, which was launched last year sees paddlers from around the world compete in six open ocean races across five continents.

For every podium finish, athletes are given a points allocation and the winners are crowned at the end of the year with four of your best results counting towards your final score.

Nixon scored 560 points completing five of the six races, with her closest competitor, Teneale Hatton (Australia) ending on 510 points.

Incredibly the surfski Queen won the West Coast Express (South Africa) and the Irish Coast (Ireland) placed second at the The Steelcase Dragon Run (Hong Kong) and placed fourth at the Perth Doctor (Australia) and the 20 Beaches Ocean Classic (Australia).

This along with her silver medal for South Africa at the ICF Ocean Racing World Championships in France meant she ended 2019 on cloud nine.

“Winning the overall World Surf Ski League title was hugely exciting. I think even more so because it was the most competitive year, certainly in the latter half of the year as a number of lifesaving and ironwoman competitors entered the fray. I was ecstatic with my performances and more so with the overall growth of the sport and the new competitors that have entered the fray. You can’t have the same people finishing on the podium. The boost of the league is exactly what the sport needed,” she explained.

Speaking on the overhaul of the league, Nixon said the corporate sponsorship helped take the sport to a new level.

“The current competition used to be called the World Surfski Series and it was founded in 2007. It was totally rebranded last year with a new corporate sponsor who came on board. I think moving forward this is the next level of competition. It gives accessibility to athletes all around the world who can compete some of the best paddlers around. Instead of preparing for the world champs where after one race everything is over, the league offers athletes a different dimension. You can also compete in the world champs and compete in the league which is hugely beneficial to grow as an athlete,” she said.

Nixon said she would be doing a select few races this year and hoped to branch out into a mentorship role.

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