Kumba West Coast Classic 2013 - Day 1
posted by Simon Heale on 29th March 2013
Testing but rampy conditions greeted the riders this morning at Famous Last Words, with a building swell and steadily increasing wind heats got underway immediately. 2-3ft waves and growing fast, every rider did the best they could, busting out on every section thrown at them.
The Mens and Junior round 1's were completed today with Daniel Fluere, Aeden O'Brian, Dylan Le Roux and Garryd Ensor-smith making it through in Juniors and Andre Hugo Van Zyl, Johan De Goede, Gustav Lilienveld and Donovan Bassett making it through in mens. The stand outs were definitely Dylan and Andre both with perfectly executed inverts in their heats.
Pro's Round 1 and 2 were run and along with it came a few upsets with the likes of Andrew Raath, Jason Fowler, Adam Morely and Ian Kruger not making it through. The stand outs of this round were Mark McCarthy for his technical contest riding of every wave consisting of good clean rolls and linking maneuvers. Wilder Shultz went all out going for a huge invert of a very large section, unfortunately not landing it but it definitely got the crowd on the beach cheers loudly! Mark Watts also completely a large roll off of a set wave in the last heat of the day allowing him to advance to the quarter finals.
After the contest we ran the development quarterfinal rounds at Lamberts bay beach break. It was run in a team format which was loved by all the riders and really encouraged the pro's to pass on their knowledge to the younger generation! Anglo America have had a deep involvement and commitment to the development of the bodyboarding program in Lamberts Bay for the past 3 years and continue to grow and uplift the community through this project.
The 4 heats were run and winners were crowed from each heat, the finals for the development will be run on Sunday with the rest of the contest's finals.
Massive crowds at the main contests and the development contests made for an awesome day on the beach with Kumba and Reef South Africa seeing the fruits of their investments into the sport.
Day 2 tomorrow and with the swell predicted even bigger, all the contestants are very excited!
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