Vaughan Harris tops round three of the WSG
Source: www.isasurf.org
posted on 24th March 2004
Jessi Miley-Dyer raised the bar at the 20th ISA World Surfing Games being staged at Playa de la FAE near Salinas, Ecuador, today when she scored a perfect 10 point ride in the solid two metre (6 foot) surf, the first of the event to date.
The young Australian, winner of the girls U19 title at the inaugural ISA World Junior Surfing Championships in Durban, South Africa, last year, set the contest abuzz by dropping into an overhead wave way on the outside of the point that she proceeded to carve up with one radical manoeuvre after another.
Three committed top to bottom moves using the full face of the wave, followed by a cutback that saw her connect to the inside section where she continued her assault on the lip of the wave resulted in the five judges unanimously granting her the rarely awarded perfect score.
Not satisfied, she then caught another ride that many onlookers thought was better than the first, only to receive a near perfect 9.33 and an event record heat total of 19.33 from a possible 20, nearly six points clear of second placed compatriot Sheridan Shields, whose tally of 13.42 points would have been sufficient to win three of the other five heats in the round.
After Andrea Lopes (Brazil) had set an extremely high standard with 13.83 points in the opening heat of the women’s qualifying round two, World #7 Sofia Mulanovich (Peru) put in an inspired performance to post 18.33 points, the second highest total of the event behind longboarder Jason Ribbink’s (SAfr) 18.49 of yesterday.
However, after Natasha Rodrigues (Venezuela) had won heat three and Sacha Moller (SAfr) had scored a narrow victory over Marie Pierre Abgrall (France) in heat four, Miley-Dyer took possession of the records for both the highest wave and highest heat total of the event.
Round six of the men’s surfing repecharge saw Mark Bannister go from third to first in the last 30 seconds of his heat to remain on track for a second successive finals appearance to go with his runner-up finish in Durban, despite his shock relegation to the repecharge heats in round one. The Aussie will have to finish either first or second in 11 consecutive heats to make the final, and although he has already progressed through six of them, it will certainly be a magnificent achievement if he pulls it off.
Bannister and team mate David Reardon-Smith finished one-two to eliminate Spencer Hargreaves (UK) and Marcelo Coutinho (Brazil) from the event, with Frankie Oberholzer (SAfr) and Hira Teriinatoofa (Tahiti) fighting out a see-saw struggle in heat two before the South African clinched victory by 16.66 to 16.33 points. Martin Bernardo (Brazil) and Daniel Scott (NZ) bowed out in third and fourth places respectively.
Mark Richardson (Aus) reigned supreme in the third heat of the round, advancing to the next round of repecharge along with second placed Loic Erran (France) at the expense of Gabriel Aramburu (Peru) and Justin Sanders (SAfr) who simply could not find any waves with scoring potential.
The second round of longboard repecharge heats saw Josh Constable (Aus), Francisco Posadas (Ecuador) and Pan American champion Steve Newton (USA) win their encounters to remain in contention for the title along with second place finishers Daniel Gil (Argentina), Rogelio Ramos (Mexico) and Lee Ryan (UK).
The bodyboarding rounds, staged in the powerful two metre plus beach break in the middle of the bay, produced some outstanding performances with South African Vaughn Harris recording the highest heat tally of the third round qualifiers – 17.23 from a possible 20 – to move into the last six. He was joined by heat winners Andrew Lester (Aus) and Alvaro Padron (Spain) who beat reigning ISA bodyboard champ Nicolas Capdeville (France in heat three. The other two to reach the semis were Beau Day (Aus) and Bruno Invyk (Brazil).
The third round of qualifying in the women’s bodyboard pitted reigning ISA world champ Neymara Carvalho against 2002 runner-up Heloise Bourroux (France) with the French girl emerging victorious on this occasion, although both are through to the last six and will be seeded into separate semi-finals. They will be joined by Kira Llewellyn (UK) and Luna Montigo (Italy) from the first heat and Marina Taylor (Spain) and Megan Saunders (Venezuela) from the second.
The Australians tightened their grip at the top of the provisional team standings and have yet to lose a single member of their team. South Africa are currently second after losing two of their men’s open surfers with Peru third, also with two men out but with worse finishing positions than SA. Brazil currently fill fourth spot but have potential champions in virtually every division and cannot be discounted at this stage while France, Venezuela, Tahiti, Spain, Costa Rica and hosts Ecuador occupy the balance of the top 10 positions.
The ISA World Surfing Games continues until Sunday March 28, with tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) action moving onto the main podium starting with the high pressure men’s open qualifying semi-finals followed by round seven open men’s repecharge, women’s surfing round three qualifiers and repecharge, two rounds of men and women’s bodyboard repecharge and the repecharge round three longboard heats.
NB Further releases from various teams and images from the 2004 ISA WSG are available on
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