Sunshine Beach State High’s Excellence in Surfing (EIS) team has been on fire the last couple of seasons and this month will take on the best teams in the country at the inaugural Australian Interschools Surfing Championships on the Gold Coast.
Surfing Australia will unveil Australia’s largest ever school surfing event at main venue Surfers Paradise 22-24 May, aiming to showcase secondary school students’ surfing talent through a tag team format similar to the popular Australian Boardriders Battle, and individual divisions. Surfers will compete in teams of three, divided into two age groups for boys and girls – Year 7-9 and Year 10-12.
Surfing Australia’s chief of sport Luke Madden said he was thrilled to add a major schools surfing competition to the Surfing Australia events repertoire. “We’re excited to launch Australia’s largest school surfing event, which will fill a huge gap in our development pathway at the school surfing level while providing an amazing opportunity to show the depth of school surfing talent across the country. We hope that in the future every school will be watching surfing, either on the beach or live from their auditorium, with thousands of students competing and families also making holidays around the national events.”
Surfers in Sunshine Beach High’s EIS team over the past few years have won a number of Australian Junior titles, with Eliza Richardson going back-to-back in Under 14 girls and Willem Watson finishing third in the boys. Lennix Currie and Mia Waite also reigned supreme on longboards claiming Australian titles.
EIS co-ordinator Kurt Barrow said his team was confident of making a bold showing at the first schools tag team challenge.
