The 2015 Starboard Emmarentia 10Km SUP Race took place on the 5th September at Emmarentia Dam in Johannesburg. With competitors from all around the country including Durban and Cape Town, this SUPSA sanctioned event promised to have lots of action with the countries best paddlers battling it out around the 1.05km course featuring three buoy turns per lap.
Competitors were welcomed with some drizzling rain and overcast conditions during registration, but by the time the race was ready to get started, the clouds were beginning to clear and the rain had subsided.
At the blowing of the horn, the paddlers were off with everyone furiously paddling their heart out to see which paddler would be the first to lead the pack and set the race pace. Chris Couve followed by Gunter Berger, with their hometurf advantage, managed to take pole position and set the race pace. Kimon from Cape Town, Anton from Johannesburg and Brandon and Grantley from Durban justled it out for third position with Kimon just making it around the first buoy turn first to secure third position.
As per SUPSA regulations, the Ladies started one minute after the men with Jackie from Durban, who has been having a phenomenal racing season, shooting out of the starting blocks and setting the pace amongst the ladies.
Once the pace had been set and all paddlers had found their rythm, there was not too much shuffling between places. The mutiple buoy turns per lap also served as a challenge for most paddlers not used to so may turns in an endurance race.
The weather was still playing game with cloudy and cool conditions that continued all the way until the end of the race. The 10th and final lap had
Chris and Gunter create a sizeable gap to Kimon in 3rd place followed by Brandon, Anton then Grantley. The Ladies field had Jackie leading by a sizeable gap followed by Lande and then Danielle.
Chris managed to open up a 20 seconds gap to Gunter in the final sprint for the finish taking the title for the Open Men’s with Jacky from Durban also putting in a last hard sprint to take the win amongst the Open Ladies.
Ten Thousand Rands worth of Cash Prize Money sponsored by E4 and R 15000 worth of prizes from G-Form and Starboard had not only the front runners, but most of the field going home with a prize to remember the race by.
Results:
Mens
Chris Couve
Gunter Berger
Kimon Dos Santos
Legends
Brandon Read
Anton Nel
Grantly Read
Juniors
Kimon Dos Santos
Anthony Peterson
Ladies
Jackie de Billiot
Lande Williamson
Danielle Hefers
Kimon Dos Santos takes the Juniors title and an awesome 3rd place overall.
Danielle Hefers secures 3rd place in the Ladies category
This years inland race was held at Emmarentia Dam near Greenside in Gauteng.
Jackie de Billiot pushed hard and took the Ladies top spot and fantastic 9th overall
SUP newcomber Corne Ressouw had an outstanding performance and wins “Most Improved” prize of a Starboard Inflatable PFD
Tigers Milk Surf Classic attracts over 100 multi discipline surfriding competitors to Muizenberg Corner
Surfers Corner in Muizenberg is the most popular surfing beach in Cape Town and the country and it seems only fitting that the popular Muizenberg Corner restaurant, Tigers Milk, has stepped up to present the first ever multi discipline surfriding event to ever take place at this iconic venue.
Over 100 surfers, longboarders and SUP waveriders have entered the Tigers Milk Classic which will take place at the Corner on September 12th and 13th. Among the entries are World Champions, national champions in all three disciplines, national team members in all three disciplines and numerous provincial champions and team members.
Matthew Moir, a two time World Longboard Champion, is top seed in the Men’s Longboard division while current World Longboard Champion Simone Robb is top seed in the Women’s Longboard division. Other Longboarders who have made their mark in top longboard events include Kwezi Qika,a member of the National Team in 2006, provincial representatives William Wallace, Michael Grendon,Tristan Lev, Tyrone Jensen,Robin Somogyvari, Alfonso Peters,John and Nobel de Castro, Kay Holt, Jessie Marjaan Goodman,Margreet Wibbelink, senior WP Longboard administrators, Patrick Corbitt and Paul O’Connell as well as legendary Longboard “Diva” Bernie Shelley.
The SUP contingent is headed by National representatives Justin Bing, Dylan Frick and the legendary Chris Bertish with Roxy Davis, Penny Stemmet and her twin sister Tammy Robarts top seeds in the Women’s SUP. The Varsity Division sees National team surfers Gina Smith, Nikita Kekana, Anoush Zakarian all competing in this unique addition to a local surfing event.
South African Team captain and current World ranked professional surfer Mikey February is top seed in the 2A Rated PST Men’s Surfing Division which has attracted former junior national team members, Jordy Maree, Steff Burrows and Diran Zakarian while current national team surfers Tanika Hoffman & Faye Zoetmulder come up against fellow national representatives Tarryn Chudleigh, Emma Smith and four time SA Champion Nikita Robb in the 2A Rated PST Women’s Division.
Others to watch in the Men’s Division are recent SA Championships finalists and Muizenberg locals Craig Johnson and Brandon Benjamin, top junior surfers Jake and Max Elkington, Ethan Fletcher and Ford Van Jaarsveldt as well as Dillon Fernandez, Paul Sampson – Chudleigh and Donovan and Dylan Wichmann. Crystal Hulett, Danielle Johnson, Natasha Van Greunen, Pippa Jones are all well known provincial surfers and could surprise in the Women’s Division.
Each of the six Divisions offers R5000 in prizemoney with the winner of the Men’s Varsity Division securing himself a custom made Simmonds Surfboard. The winner of the Women’s Varsity Division will receive a Gul wetsuit in addition to her prizemoney.
Vouchers for meals at Tigers Milk and a bunch of spot prizes will be won by contestants in the Tigers Milk Surf Classic and spectators will be able to listen to keep up with all the heats as they take place courtesy of the Surfing South Africa live scoring system.
All the officials including the judges will be adjudicating the event from behind the glass windows of the restaurant which overlooks the contest area and a monitor will be installed in Tigers Milk which will show the live scoring.
The prizegiving will take place inside Tigers Milk immediately after the last final on Sunday September 13th.
The heats and contest schedule for the 2015 Tigers Milk Surf Classic posted on www.surfingsouthafrica.co.za on Friday September 4th
Surfing South Africa is the governing body for the sport in South Africa and is a member of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) and the International Surfing Association (ISA).
After the recent completion of the third and final event of the 2015 SUPSA SA Wave Surfing Series in Cape Town the final national rankings for the 2015 season have been released by SUPSA. Competitors retain their two best scores from the three events, which started with the Coreban Summer Series held in December 2014 at Big Bay Bloubergstrand. This was followed by the HW Brokers Supdurbs Pro held in Durban in early July, followed by the UnderArmour SA SUP Wavechamps also held in Blouberg two weeks later.
Competitors were fortunate this year in that all three events were held in decent sized surf for a considerable portion of the time, allowing them to enjoy some great conditions along with some more challenging ones. This allowed the top competitors to showcase the full extent of the progression in their SUP surfing skills which the last couple of years has demanded.
The Open Men and Ladies divisions rankings are the major criteria used for selection of the SA Team to attend the ISA World Championships, and as usual they were very tightly contested, with the finalists in both divisions of the SA Champs all in with a chance of qualification until the final results were announced.
Justin Bing retains his number one SUP Wave position
In the end it was Coreban teammates Justin Bing and Tom King who claimed the coveted top 2 spots in the Open Mens rankings with 2.7 points each, with Justin retaining the number one position by virtue of his win in the SA Champs, which outranks the other events in the event of a tie. Brandon Ribbink was the third surfer to win an event which resulted in him finishing just behind the other two event winners. Two Juniors, Nick Walker and Matthew Maxwell, proved that the future of SUP surfing is in good hands by finishing in 4th and 5th position respectively.
New comer Roxy Davis is crowned Open Ladies Division Champion
The Open Ladies division was also a cliffhanger right until the end of the final heat of competition. Eventually it was relative newcomer to competitive Sup surfing, Roxy Davis, who walked away with the honours after being the most consistent surfer in the 3 contests, ahead of Tammy Robarts, Tarryn Kite and Penny Stemmet, all of whom have represented SA at previous ISA World Championships.
Grantley Read takes the Legends SUP Wave title
In the Legends Division, Grantley Read remained as consistent as ever to take the honours ahead of perennial competitor Gary van Rooyen, with Dave Maxwell and Deon Bosman filling out the placings.
In the Divas division Kim Duvenhage took the top spot followed by Angela Whittle and Sue Maxwell.
In the Junior Boys, Nick Walker made a clean sweep of the 3 events, with Matthew Maxwell runner up, and Kimon Dos Santos and Joshua Robertson claiming 3rd and 4th respectively in their final year in the Junior division. It was encouraging to see 24 entries in this division during the course of the 3 events, as well as the first separate Junior Girls division being run separately during SA Champs, which will hopefully be supported enough to be a permanent division in future.
SUPSA has partnered with Discovery Health through their Vitality program to offer members the opportunity in receiving Discovery Vitality Points when taking part in an events of the SUPSA Race Series.
So as from the next event which is next weekend, the “Starboard Emmarentia Dam 10 km SUP Race” paddlers who are Discovery Health “Vitality” member will be able to login into their Vitality page and record their race info into the “outdoor sports event” section and receive Vitality Points. These events will only appear on the “outdoor sports events” calendar once the event is completed. This will continue into next year’s race series and hopefully other SUP events in the near future.
