It’s kind of ancient history now, with the Teahupo’o tour event promising plenty of magic and mayhem in the days ahead, but I’m still buzzing about the great results in the Sydney Pro Challenger Series event concluded at North Narrabeen a week or so ago.
While the surf wasn’t exactly classic Narra – and I’ve seen a lot of big events go down in near perfect waves at this A-plus beach break – the performances in often-gnarly washing machine conditions of yesterday’s heroes trying to make a comeback and tomorrow’s heroes trying to make an impact led to some thrilling clashes, and the performances of the two winners led the way.
Given that she’s fallen off the main tour as often as she’s qualified, you’d have to classify Coolum’s Isabella Nichols as a battler, but oh my, what a classy battler this lady is. In fact, she’s currently my favourite woman on tour, just a few shades back from Steph when it comes to fluid surfing style and with the competitive grunt of a Layne Beachley. I don’t know what she was thinking at Snapper when she let little Erin Brooks drop into a bomb of a barrel behind the rock at Snapper under priority, handing her a slot in the final, which she then won, but Bella was giving nothing away at Narrabeen, not even to her mate Erin.
Coming in off a third at Snapper and as defending champ in Sydney, Bella never looked likely to falter, taking out some of the best in the CS, including Sally Fitzgibbons in the semis. In the final she was strong and methodical, whereas Erin, the form surfer of the Australian leg, looked a little tired. The Californian needed a huge score in the dying minutes and almost got it with a huge frontside full-rotation air-reverse which she didn’t quite land.
Now they sit one (Erin) and two (Bella) in the women’s rankings, with two of four keeper results for Bella to requalify and Erin to jump-start her championship career.
In the men’s it was a similarly dramatic and emotion-charged final for local boy Jordan Lawler, a true battler of immense talent but little luck in the coloured jersey, to the point where he had decided to pull the plug on pro surfing and get a real job, until a wildcard was offered at his home beach.
Using local knowledge to pick the diamonds in the rough in difficult conditions, and spurred on by a massively supportive crowd, Jordy ploughed through round after round, taking down some big names until he met the veteran wave-savvy Brazilian ex-WCT surfer Alejo Muniz in the final. Neither of them had anything to lose in what became an epic battle, but the crowd kept roaring and Jordy kept going excellent to take the crown.
Now, if he gets a couple more wildcards on the strength of the win, he has an outside chance to qualify for 2025, with a current ranking of fourth. Being a tradie can wait.
Mal Club cleans up State titles
The Noosa Mal Club cleaned up at the Queensland Longboard Titles at Alex Bluff last week with a host of titles, but the comp was all Josh Constable’s, with the veteran former world champ coming off four months out of the water with a serious knee injury to claim the men’s open title as well as his age group over 40s.
It was a sweet win in the open for the 2006 world pro longboard champion, beating two of his former coaching proteges in Landen and Kaiden Smales, both less than half his age, in tiny peelers better suited to agile youth than to a middle-aged dad with a crook knee! And to score a near-perfect 9.5 in the final while doing it! Ben Williams was fourth.
Noosa surfers also swamped the podium in the women’s open with Kirra Molnar taking the title from Mia Waite, overcoming her young, rising star rival while still recovering from jet lag after her return from competing in the ISA World Titles in El Salvador, where she helped the Aussie team into sixth place of 39 competing countries.
Other Noosa Mal Club winners included: Nyjah Jay Duazo, U-18 women; Kate Perry, O-50 and O-60 women; Glen Gower, O-45 men; and Wally Allan, O-55 and O-60 mens.
Zion wins Flotsam
And just to finish off Noosa bragging rights for this week, budding surf photographer and videographer Zion Poy, 16, from Sunshine Beach State High, took out the surf photography U-18 prize at the recent Flotsam surf photography festival on the Gold Coast.
Zion made the finals with two of his shots from the recent Gold Coast Pro CS event, with the winner being the clever juxtaposition of surfer, contest jet ski and Gold Coast city skyline. Zion received his award from leading international surf film-maker Taylor Steele.
