Junior surfers from Bondi to Cronulla who have qualified for the upcoming state titles through the Southern Beaches regionals have been put through an intense training camp by Surfing NSW.
The camp was part of a new structure that provides better pathways for competitive surfers and makes the use of the facilities that each division has available.
Cronulla’s top ten-ranked WSL Championship Tour surfer Connor O’Leary was on hand to go through his warm up and daily training routine for the 20 juniors who were split into two groups from under-16s to 18s and under-12s to 14s.
Surfing is not just about riding waves so surfers were also put through O’Leary’s gym schedule at Caringbah’s Lean Performance with former footballer Dean Jamieson.
Surfing NSW CEO Luke Madden co-ordinated the event saying “it’s part of our high performance program. We have done it before but this is a more structured format, more tailored to each surfing region.”
Cronulla Surfing Academy head coach Blake Johnstone is also the NSW coaching director and he put surfers through a challenging session with former pro John Shimooka.
Established names like Jay Brown and Nathan Rohr were joined by up and coming juniors Jetson Kuch and Maxime Rayer in the first session. In the micros, Jarvis Earle was joined by a whole batch of grommets all waiting to step up and make their names.
After a week of excellent surf Channel 7 was also on hand to do a sport segment on O’Leary’s interest in competing in the inaugural surfing event at the Tokyo Olympic games at his mother Akemi’s home town, which also gave the juniors an extra incentive to perform for the cameras.
“This will make surfing go to another level,” O’Leary said – just like the juniors aim to do.
The NSW junior titles will be held at Port Macquarie and Maroubra in July.
This week has been one to remember for surfers along the whole East coast with a swell that didn't want to die, giving good waves day after day.
Today's pics aren't from this morning but from when the swell was bigger on Friday at the Wall and from the surf camp on Saturday at Wanda.
An entire week of offshore winds has now left us with a small 3ft residual South swell that is still giving, until tomorrow when it will finally run out of steam.
The Swellnet prediction for the week ahead shows the small waves today will get smaller tomorrow before a Sou -West wind change blows through on Thursday with an immediate 4-6 ft jump in size for Friday and into the weekend.
Winds should veer to a light W’ly both days, trending more SW on Saturday and then NW on Sunday with a decreasing swell.
The Australian Skin Cancer Clinics NSW Longboard Titles presented by HIF wrapped up in pristine four-foot peaks at Bonny Hills as some of NSW’s best Open and Junior Longboarders aimed to cement a position into the upcoming Australian Surf Festival.
Dane Pioli (Tweed Heads) managed to take a clean sweep of victories across the Open Longboard and Logger divisions as he claimed top honours in both divisions.
Cronulla didnt have a surfer in any finals except for the juniors where the whole O’Connor family placed-Sean and Thomas O’Connor finishing 2nd and 3rd in the u16’s and presumably their mother ,Amanda O’Connor 3rd in the over 35 women’s.
Till next week and psyching up for JBay.