Cronulla's longest-running annual surf contest hits the water this weekend with the 31st Northies Alley Masters to be held at North Cronulla Beach.
The contest, which was created in 1989 by the Cronulla Sharks Boardriders Club, has become an open invitational event with cadet, junior, women's, over-45 and the main 'Masters Blue Jacket' open categories.
Title holder Jared Hickel (Elouera) and Cronulla Boardriders' Jay Brown, who dominated the under-19 All-Stars School NSW titles last weekend, are favourites.
Jay will go head to head with Cronulla club champion Jordan Widenstrom with the pair equal on the club point score, with the Masters a double points event.
Jay won the under-19 school All-Stars final at Coffs Harbour last week catching a 9.43 and an 8.83 which resulted in an excellent 18.26 two-wave heat total.
As a result, the Cronulla goofy-footer left his fellow finalists chasing two-wave combinations of scores.
Jarvis Earle also cracked a win after his second-placed finish at the NSW titles to ensure another title would return to the shire, winning the under-16 boys All-Stars.
Schoolmate Kalani Vandepolder finished fourth with April Davey fourth in the under-19 girls.
At Maroubra, Cronulla's Kash Brown surfed well beyond his years to win the under-12 boys NSW Grommet titles.
Kash showed style and flow of much older surfers as he squared up a variety of solid forehand and backhand turns to post a 13.07 two-wave heat total.
Cronulla surfers are in for plenty of waves this week even though conditions might not be ideal at the moment.
After Mondays perfect surfing conditions a southerly has blown through that will keep the swell at shoulder/head high level but with average surface conditions that will turn around tomorrow and clean up.
There are some solid waves this morning ,try to get some on the high tide if you want to surf the beaches because the banks aren't too good on the low.
The forecast looks good though with offshores on Thursday ,Friday afternoon and Saturday morning with a solid swell increase on Sunday pushing some 8 footers into our beaches,leaving Monday looking nice at 4-6ft and offshore-hopefully the banks don't let us down and we get some good waves.
The Vans US Open of Surfing presented by Swatch saw strong performances from the local contingent alongside dramatic losses as Round 3 of the World Surf League Men's Qualifying Series 10,000 event got underway. One of the largest action sports festivals in the world, the Vans US Open of Surfing takes place at the iconic Huntington Beach pier with surfing, skateboarding and BMX competitions taking center stage, in addition to community-centered activities, art and entertainment.
Some more of the world's best were in the water immediately following the first horn with current USA World No. 1 Kolohe Andino going to work with other Round 2 standouts included big debuts for Ezekiel Lau (Haw),Conner Coffin (USA) and Matt Wilkinson (Aus) in their respective heats.
The good news is Connor O'Leary is flying under the radar and not getting a mention even though he has smashed through into round four-he started strong in his 3rd round heat cracking a 7.45 first wave and then sat solid for 15 minutes until his second 5.2 wave for the heat win.
Connor surfs in round four this morning in heat 2 against two Brazilians ,Ribeiro and Crisanto-Up Up.
Last week marks one year to go until surfing makes its Olympic debut in Tokyo and the world's best surfers are halfway through the 2019 World Surf League Championship Tour and their journey to qualify.
To celebrate the countdown to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 the WSL has launched worldsurfleague.com/2020where fans can follow the qualification race and see the rankings.
Following the final CT events of 2019 (the Hawaii Pro and Billabong Pipe Masters), the world rankings will determine the first 18 eligible Olympic qualifiers (10 men and 8 women), subject to all qualified surfers meeting the ISA's and IOC's eligibility requirements and being selected by their respective National Olympic Committee.
There is a maximum of two men and two women for each country that can qualify so this year's CT sees surfers not only battle for the World Title and requalification but also to finish as one of the top two ranked surfers from their nation.
The remaining 22 places will be determined at the 2019 and 2020 ISA World Surfing Games, the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, and a single slot (each for men and women) for the host nation, Japan.
