Mossel Bay’s Shaun Joubert and Athlone Park’s Sarah Baum surfed their way to the top spots in the Oakley Pro Junior Port Alfred Men’s and Women’s divisions respectively. As the defending champion, Joubert made it two in a row by beating Brendon Gibbens (Kommetjie) in the highest scoring heat of the event. Baum claimed a landmark victory over fellow finalist Kirsty Delport (Durban) to take the win in the first ever ASP Africa sanctioned Pro Junior Women’s event in the history of South African surfing. The entire day of surfing was run in perfect three to four foot (1 to 1.5 metre) waves at Port Alfred’s East Beach, with soft offshore winds and sunny skies all the way to the final.
The Oakley Pro Junior Men’s final started with both surfers posting decent rides in the 6 point range (out of a possible 10), until on the 11 minute mark Joubert took off on a medium sized wave, worked a good opening turn and then set up on the inside for an extremely high double grab aerial, landing low on his board and riding it out to a perfect 10 point score from the judges. This put opponent Brendon Gibbens in a combination situation, the Cape Town surfer struggling to answer back. Joubert then extended his lead with an excellent 8.00 awarded after a series of radical and tight off-the-bottom off-the-top combinations, finishing strong by surfing out of a quick and powerful turn as the wave exploded behind him.
Joubert’s combined total now sat at …Â Details