The nudie Australian Boardriders Battle is Australia’s biggest grassroots boardriders event and involves more than 60 of Australia’s best clubs.
Taking place across eight state qualifying rounds, only 24 clubs will come together at the national final in Newcastle this weekend to battle it out to become the 2018-19 Australian champions.
Finalists Elouera Boardriders Club made their surfing statement by winning the southern NSW nudie Australian Boardriders Battle event, taking down 13 other fired up boardriders clubs from south of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in clean two-foot waves at Jones Beach.
The Surfing Sutherland Shire club has a new team to fit the revised format where all the individual points accumulate on the Saturday to get the teams into a final surf off on Sunday.
The team comprises of former World Surf League Championship Tour surfer Connor O’Leary, Shane Campbell, Jared Hickel and junior Jarvis Earle, over-35s Paul Holbrook and former Cronulla Boardriders women’s champion Rachel McKendrick (nee Campbell).
“We were so pumped to have won the qualifying event,” O’Leary said.
“We’ve been trying to win the NSW qualifier for so long and we finally did it. It’s an event series we all look forward to all year as the calibre of surfing is always so high. We’re definitely going to give it everything we’ve got at the national final at Newcastle.”
Elouera’s result last year was mired in controversy when Surfing Australia released a statement addressing a critical human error in the adding up of the points in the 2018 final to determine who should have been in that grand final.
It turned out that Culburra Boardriders, who won the event, should never have even been in it. Elouera Boardriders were the team who rightfully should have surfed in their place.
The Elouera club was given prizemoney compensation to cover what they should have had the opportunity to compete for in the final.
The purpose of the nudie Australian Boardriders Battle program is to build the profile and capacity of community boardriders clubs Australia-wide. In the last five years Surfing Australia has invested more than $750,000 into Surfing Australia affiliated boardriders clubs as part of the nudie Australian Boardriders Battle series.
The series is officially sanctioned by the World Surf League, which allows Australian WSL World Tour surfers the opportunity to represent their local boardriders club at respective state qualifying events and the national final.
Things are starting to look up at Cronulla this week with good waves everyday since last Friday with Sunday morning a perfect 4-5ft offshore classic day.
A 3-4ft east swell has been lingering ever since and this morning even after the southerly last night we still have some nice waves if you know where to go.
The wind is onshore but its 4-5ft and definetly worth a surf-the banks are very tide dependant so make the use of the morning high for the beaches and lunchtime low for all the reef breaks.
The forecast also looks good with a new swell to hit Saturday afternoon,Sunday giving us some more head high joy-the winds are variable but with a mix of offshores to keep us happy.
The World Surf League (WSL) today announced that after six years in the position, Commissioner Kieren Perrow is stepping down to take on a supporting role at the WSL, which will leverage his decades of experience in evolving and championing the technical aspects of the sport.
Pat O’Connell, former WSL Championship Tour (CT) competitor and current VP of Sports Marketing at Hurley, will succeed Perrow in the newly titled WSL role of SVP, Tours & Head of Competition (formerly titled “The Commissioner”), overseeing the Commissioner’s Office roles and responsibilities. O’Connell will be based out of WSL Headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
Last Friday Surfing NSW ran a female coaching day at Wanda with over 30 surfers with Blake Johnston’s Cronulla Surf Academy- all thanks to Mothernest, a loyal sponsor of Surfing NSW who want to give back to females and create a memorable experience.
The session was designed for recreational or competitive intermediate female shortboard and longboard surfers aged 12 years and over and assisted with all aspects of improving your surfing, whether it was improvement or competitive success.
The late afternoon thunderstorm presented some challenges to participants, but all-in-all it was a huge success with a progressive surf coaching session focussed on technique and future development; involving surfing, filming and reviewing.
