Last weekend saw the completion of the 5th leg of the BPSA UK Tour, The Headworx Welsh Open – The Riders Choice. There was consistent 3-5ft surf all weekend for the 6 divisions with points now becoming more important as the season draws ever nearer to a close.

Saturday greeted the entrants with 4-5ft heavy surf and the Pro Junior got underway, Matt Capel, in his last year as a junior, was looking hot all day and clearly eager to take home the Pro Junior Title! He made it to the final taking the overall Pro Junior Title before the groms went out.

The BPSA Grom tour is now in full swing and a fantastic addition to British Surfing, with the groms travelling over the country in a bid to take the title and improve their surfing. Three divisions competed including U’16 girls and boys and U’12’s. In testing conditions for the groms they all braved their way out back and gave it their best. The U’12 event was won by Harry Timpson and the U’16 girls event was taken out by Gwen Spurlock. In the U’16 boys Aiden Wright narrowly defeated Toby Donachie for the win!

The first round of the Open was also competed today with standouts including Chris Seage and Dave Richards. Dave was having a great day and capped it off by taking out Matt Capel in the Pro Junior Final which included a 10 point ride. A bomb left that which he destroyed on his backhand with 5 huge turns.

Sunday greeted the competitors with 3-4 ft surf and the men’s open kicked off. Surfing well were Toby Atkins and Micah Lester, who later in his semi final racked up three or four 9-point rides including three deep barrels. Even more impressive was that no-one else got one the entire event. Micah also claimed the Freerange Sports Optics Best Cutback and took the £250 from his new sponsors.

All the boys were surfing well and the finalists included Sam Lamiroy, Matt Capel, Llew Whittaker and defending Headworx Welsh Open champion Mark Harris. However before they went out there were the Women’s Open Final as well as the Longboard Final. The longboarders had a good heat and in the end the win went to Nick Dowrick.

Next up were the ladies, sponsored by Outer Reef Surf School, and could anyone put an end to BPSA Champion and current tour leader Nicole Morgan’s insane winning streak? The answer was yes as Easky Britton picked off two good waves early on and never looked back. Congratulations to Easky on a great win.

So in went the men and after a slow start it started to get exciting with the lead changing regularly. Mark Harris took the early lead with two bankable waves on his forehand while Lamiroy also went about his business taking the lead about half way trough the heat before Harris again jumped ahead 5 minutes later. Llew was struggling to find anything decent while Matt Capel was logging some medium scores. With four minutes to go Capel found a medium size left and bashed it on his backhand until it linked up into the inside section where he was able to make 3 more turns, earn seven points and leapfrog from 3rd to 1st and take the win.

Overall a great weekend for Capel, winning his sponsors event and taking the overall Pro Junior Title. Other thanks go to Foster’s Freerange, Relentless, Outer Reef Surf School and of course event sponsors Headworx.

Men’s Open

• 1st – Matt Capel
• 2nd – Mark Harris
• 3rd – Sam Lamiroy
• 4th – Llewellyn Whittaker

Women’s Open

• 1st – Easky Britton
• 2nd – Nicole Morgan
• 3rd – Beth Mason
• 4th – Anne Marie Kenyeres

Pro Junior

• 1st – Dave Richards
• 2nd – Matt Capel
• 3rd – Keegan Nel
• 4th – Fabian Baker

Longboard

• 1st – Nick Dowrick
• 2nd – Martin John
• 3rd – Chris Sanders
• 4th – Ben Byfield

U’16 Boys

• 1st – Aiden Wright
• 2nd – Toby Donachie
• 3rd – Adam Reimnitz
• 4th – Alex Baker

U’16 Girls

• 1st – Gwen Spurlock
• 2nd – Kathleen Spears
• 3rd – Cara Gaskell

U’12

• 1st – Harry Timson
• 2nd – Dave Williams
• 3rd – Raife Gaskell
• 4th – Hal Gaskell