Louise Lepront (Scottburgh) and Rory Dace (Cape St Francis) both won two divisions – The U16 and U18 divisions – at the recent Sea Harvest Vic Bay GromComp presented by Rip Curl.
Both surfers put on outstanding performances to outpoint their competitors and take double wins in the excellent waves on offer at the iconic right-hand point break this weekend.
The competition had conditions ranging from perfect on Friday, to massive and unruly on Saturday, and finally ending up clean and highly contestable on Sunday. Despite these challenging conditions, Lepront and Dace emerged victorious, showing strength and adaptability in their performances.
“I had a good start to the U18 final and got a 7.5 ride, but then I couldn’t find another good one,” said Dace of his U18 Boys’ final. In it, Dace was up against Luc Lepront, Clayton Turrel, and Kai Hall. “Then, with about forty seconds to go, I found a good one, rode it through to the inside, and was awarded the score I needed to win. So stoked.”
A disappointed Lepront was pushed back to second place, with Clayton Turrell and Kai Hall coming third and fourth, respectively.
Bolstered by her earlier U16 Girls win, Louise Lepront fought a hard battle on her backhand as waves poured through at Vic Bay, and the dynamic natural-footer Emily Jenkinson chased her hard. In the end, Lepront held onto her lead until the final buzzer to take the win from Jenkinson, with Anastasia Venter and Gabrielle Herbst third and fourth.
Saturday had plenty of drama as huge waves bashed the coastline. Event officials decided to run the U16 Boys and the U18 Boys rounds, with the smaller waves on the forecast better for the younger divisions. Some surfers had tough heats, confronted by huge waves and challenging paddle-outs, but it was a battle of the fittest and the most determined, and those surfers came out on top.
On the finals day, Ben Esterhuyse from Cape Town put on his best performance ever in the U14 Boys final. Surfing with his back to the wave (right foot forward), Esterhuyse picked up a great-looking wave at the beginning of the heat to bank an excellent score of 9.0 (out of a possible 10) and start the heat off with confidence.
He then found another perfect wave and performed several high-risk moves that compelled the judges to award him a higher score than his previous one. He was awarded a 9.4, bringing his heat total to 18.4, the event’s highest heat total.
With a few surfers not in attendance at this event due to overseas commitments or injuries, as well as a few surprise eliminations on Big Saturday, the results of this event have seen a shake-up in the rankings, which can be found here – https://liveheats.com/surfingsouthafrica
photo:All the winners (L to R) – Louise Lepront, Rory Dace, Brin Jarvis, Ben Esterhuyse,
Slayde Shoter, Leah Lepront – Photo Cally Taylor
Final Results:
U12 Girls
Brin Jarvis
U12 Boys
Slayde Shooter
Luc Jackson
Lazaro De Bruyn
Cody Painter
U14 Girls
Leah Lepront
Camilla Heuer
Jasmine Venter
Mikayla Jefferis
U14 Boys
Ben Esterhuyse
Owen Heny
Callum Loftus
Charlie Napier
U16 Girls
Louise Lepront
Emily Jenkinson
Leah Lepront
Sophia Jackson
U16 Boys
Rory Dace
Rylan Jarvis
Ben Esterhuyse
Kieran Murphy
U18 Girls
Louise Lepront
Emily Jenkinson
Anastasia Venter
Gabrielle Herbst
U18 Boys
Rory Dace
Luc Lepront
Clayton Turrell
Kai Hall
The junior surfing year will culminate in the SA Junior Championships at Lower Point in JBay from September 24 – 29.
