European Junior Tour Culminates at Quiksilver and ROXY Junior Pro 40
• Top 64 Men and 32 Women Battle for European Junior Title
• Competition Held at Quiksilver & ROXY Pro France CS Venue
• Day 1 Underway, Big Day of Competition Ahead
• More at WorldSurfLeague.com
The European Junior Qualifying Series (JQS) will culminate this week at Stop No.3, the Quiksilver and ROXY Junior Pro 40 held in Les Landes from October 13-15, 2021.
Competition will unfold at Culs Nus beach in Hossegor, chosen for the quality of the sandbanks currently, a site that will welcome some of the world’s best surfers in the upcoming Challenger Series event, the Quiksilver and ROXY Pro France. For the first time on European soil, Junior athletes (under 18 years old) will have a chance to compete and be judged by the same panel of international judges and on the very same wave as some of their idols.
The 2021 European JQS has been another transitional year due to COVID19 with only three events held this season. It started in June at the E.Leclerc Pont L’Abbé Junior Pro La Torche where Adur Amatriain (EUK) and Lucia Machado (CNY) took top honors.
Amatriain’s first-ever WSL victory would set him on an upward trajectory as the 17 year-old went on to win a QS1,000 event in Galicia, before winning again at the next junior event, the GADIS Junior Pro Ferrol, once again in Galicia.
The rising Basque star leads the Junior rankings with back-to-back wins and the regional title is his to lose as he enters the final week of Junior competition this season.
Machado, who placed equal third in Galicia, faces a different challenge. She’s tied in the lead with Janire Gonzalez Etxabarri (ESP), another rising talent who recently had her first taste of the Challenger Series in Portugal. The Spanish pair has a decent lead in the European junior title race but in the hunt are Portugal’s Gabriela Dinis and Francisca Veselko with a realistic shot at the top spot in the ever-changing and challenging conditions of the French beachbreaks.
These future stars will be joined by fresh new faces in the names of Tim Ehrhard (FRA) and Heimiti Fierro (PYF), who have received the Quiksilver and ROXY wildcards respectively.
Junior Divisions to Open for Challenger Series Show
The pathway designed by the World Surf League to take surfers from a young age all the way to the highest level of professional surfing will be clearer than ever this week, as surfers compete on the same stage, with the same judges, the same crowds, as some of the world’s best surfers the following days for the Quiksilver and ROXY Pro France.
ROXY will award their highest ranked athlete by the end of the junior, a wildcard into the main event. Gonzalez Etxabarri currently holds the position and will look to secure the invitation over the upcoming three days.
The competition is now underway in France as surfers launch their final campaign in clean two-to-three foot surf at Culs Nus. Conditions are expected to remain small and rippable over the next three days and the event winners should be decided over the next few days.
