World champ a shock elimination at Ballina’s Grommet surfing titles
Reigning Quiksilver ISA World Junior Champion Owen Wright (Culburra, NSW) suffered a shock elimination from the quarter-finals of the 2006 Quiksilver Australian Grommet Titles presented by Samsung taking place near Ballina on the North Coast of NSW.
Wright, 17, was gunning for back-to-back national titles and a win in the U/18 Boys division would have secured him automatic seeding into next year’s World Junior Championships scheduled for Portugal in May.
In building over-head 1.5 – 2 metre waves at North Wall the young goofy footer failed to find the long scoring waves he needed against fellow New South Welshman Chris Salisbury (Newport Bch), Western Australia’s Jack Bestall (Trigg) and Queensland’s Blake Ainsworth (Coolangatta).
Wright was forced to play catch-up to Salisbury for most of the 20-minute encounter and actually sat in second spot looking to advance for the majority of the heat. Then Bestall, in third and facing elimination, struck gold, finding a shapely wave that allowed him enough manoeuvres to secure an average scoring ride of 4.93 points and overtake Wright, the event favourite.
Wright attempted to answer back but the conditions were against him, falling on his last re-entry when he encountered a freak backwash, his hopes dashed with the judge’s score coming up an agonising half-a-point short. Dejected, Wright’s chances for selection in the 2007 Australian World Championship team now hinge on a wildcard allocation.
“It’s over, that’s it … I thought if I could finish my last manoeuvre cleanly, it would’ve convinced the judges to give me a better score. I think I could’ve got at least a seven (point ride), which would have been enough, but then I hit that backwash and it just flipped me off,” said Wright.
“I looked for good waves, but it was hard to tell which ones might be good until you took off. None of my waves seemed to wall up like the other guys’.”
Salisbury, who advanced to the semi-finals with a win on 14.17 points ahead of Bestall in second on 10.93 points, conceded the conditions were “like a lottery’ but were a timely test for anyone chasing a win in such a prestigious event.
“It’s tough; these conditions can really sort the men from the boys. With the clock ticking, you’re forced to decide between paddling out or running up to the corner of the beach to get back into the rip as fast as possible. Fitness plays a bigger factor on these sorts of days.” explained Salisbury.
“Owen has done well before, but it was like a lottery out there today.”
Queensland State Champion Harrison Roach (Sunshine Beach) was one surfer who fell into rhythm in the testing surf, the Sunshine Beach natural footer showing excellent form to ride some big waves and advance easily into the semis with a high two-wave combined heat score of 16.17 points.
Roach matched power with power, pulling off a few critical turns on some of the larger waves of the morning, to earn himself an 8.67 point ride and a 7.5 out of a possible 10. Victorian Josh Johnson-Baxter (Ocean Grove) followed in second behind Roach on 14.70, while Michael Levitt (Palm Beach, Qld) third on 8.90 points and Justin Cummings (Norah Head) fourth on 7.83 points were eliminated.
“I’m definitely happy, I was really lucky to get in the right spot,” explained Roach. “I kept my eye on Teale (South Australian Teale Vanner) and tried to sit where he sat and pick off similar waves. There’s an edge of the rip where the waves are running off, I just wanted to get as big as a wave and do the biggest turns as I could.”
South Australian Teale Vanner (Kangaroo Island) was another quarter-final stand-out and along with Roach will come up against New South Wales’ Jesse Allan (Warrambah) and Victoria’s Josh Johnson-Baxter (Ocean Grove) when the semi-finals run tomorrow.
The other U/18 Boys semi will feature Salisbury, Bestall, New South Wales’ Sam Lendrum (Nordswharf) and Victorian Jackson Collins (Phillip Island).
There was just one surprise loss in the U/18 Girls division where surfing sensation Sally Fitzgibbons (Gerroa, NSW) continued her outstanding run, the 16-year-old Gerroa local securing a semi-final berth with yet another convincing win to advance along with Queenslander Amy Hart (Currumbin).
In the same quarter, one of the event favourites, Angela Keighran of Mulloway, NSW, made a crucial error in wave judgement in the opening minutes, and then spent the next 10 fighting her way back into position. Keighran’s father, Terry, and NSW coach Sandra English could only watch in vain as their young charge slipped from contention, tumbled around by the wild sea.
At the 2005 Quiksilver Australian Grommet Titles presented by Samsung, Keighran was runner-up to Fitzgibbons and then went on to place highly at the ISA World Junior Championships in Brazil last May.
Victorian U/16 Boys competitor Todd Rosewall (Jan Juc) rode one of the biggest waves of the morning, a giant double-overhead ‘froth monster’ that stretched down a good portion of the North Wall beach. After three carefully executed carving turns, Rosewall barely escaped the jaws of the wave as it closed out behind him. Sydney star, Narrabeen’s Davey Cathels won the heat with his usual flair, but Rosewall received the biggest cheers from the Victorian gallery watching from the team tent on shore.
Dean Bowen (Gerroa, NSW) and local Garret Parkes (Byron Bay, NSW) will meet up against Rosewall and Cathels tomorrow in what is sure to be an incredible U/16 Boys semi-final.
The other U/16 Boys semi sees Queensland’s Woods brothers, Thomas and James (Coolangatta), surfing against South Australia’s Khai Adams (Victor harbour) and Victoria’s Mitchell Baker (Phillip Island).
Competition concluded with the semi-finals of the State All-Stars teams and the Mark Richards Schools divisions hitting the water.
The Mark Richards Schools national champions will be decided tomorrow when competition is expected to resume at North Wall.
For complete results and to see who claimed the Samsung K5 MP3 player for the Samsung Wave of the Day, please visit www.quiksilver.com
PICTURE: Action from the titles. The surfer is Brett Burcher. Picture courtesy of Surfing Australia.
