The Headworx English Junior Surf Team showed off some outstanding surfing ability yesterday which was seen in the most testing of conditions seen so far. The contest was held throughout the day with an early start of 8am for the surfers, the conditions were hard, with contenders surfing in solid 4-6ft surf with gale force winds.

First in the water was young body boarder Alex Wake who surfed well standing in 2nd position throughout his heat until the last remaining minutes, resulting in 3rd place needing a 3.5 to progress back to 2nd. Alex successfully picked up 500 points for the team and landed 9th position in his division. Shortly following this, Croyde local Kathleen Spears had an outstanding surf, dominating the heat and firmly leading by a good wave selection and showing off some solid turns on the best set waves rolling through. She achieved a good combination of scores resulting in progressing to the semi finals in her division to join her fellow team mate Newquay residant Holly Donnelly.

Tony Good, Team Manager said: “The standard of the girls’ surfing has improved dramatically and with a strong team behind us it is becoming more noticeable as the pressure is piled on. Kathleen and Holly have performed exceptionally well, preparing themselves with potentially tricky conditions seen, with the rest of the team learning from their performances.”

To conclude the day’s events, which were called off by 3pm due to drastic weather conditions, Holly Donnelly and Kathleen Spears were head to head against the Irish and Portuguese, Holly consistently holding the lead with a combination score of 8.67, with Kathleen dropping from 2nd position to 3rd mid heat, unfortunately leaving the Portuguese to go through.

Holly stated: “I am so happy with my performance today, I couldn’t see what the Portuguese were doing so I was ecstatic when I heard the results. I was a little nervous but once out there I felt 100% and felt confident in the surf which seemed quite daunting at first.”

Head Coach Joel Gray said: “Four days and half way through the event, we are international athletes and as we progress through and the pressure increases our scores are getting bigger, we will achieve top three position and put up a good fight with our competition.”

Day 5 will see a great standard of international surfing ability, with many semi finals to be held and the conditions will once again be expected to be testing for the athletes. Lying in 4th position overall, England has yet to gain many points with the u18 and u16 boys looking strong for their divisional heats today.