Team England juniors training: The future of English surfing – supported by dryrobe® 

Ahead of the ISA World Junior Championships in El Salvador at the end of May, the best young English groms took over Fistral Beach for a training session to hone their competition skills.

For the third year in a row, dryrobe® is sponsoring Surfing England’s Junior Squad, supporting the development of the country’s best young surfers. This funding means these talented youngsters have access to top-level coaching, dedicated support staff, structured training plans to help their progress and the ability to train at The Wave in Bristol. The Ultimate aim of this program is to help team members qualify for Youth Olympics and eventually the Olympic Games.

“Most of the sessions today will have a focus on tactics and practising heat strategies. This is something that is harder to run in smaller groups, so having the whole squad around allows us to throw lots of different situations at them.” Team Manager, Jamie Wride explains the advantage of getting the team together in one place.

As well as the in-water training, these sessions focus on other aspects of competitive surfing, from board design to nutrition and time with Surfing England’s sports psychology team. 

At the last English Nationals, members of the squad won the Men’s U18, U16 and U14 events and in the Women’s they took home the Open, U18, U16 and U14 titles!

U16 Squad member and dryrobe® ambassador Lukas Skinner is already feeling the benefit: “Being part of the Surfing England Junior Squad has helped me so much. Learning how to use heat strategies, having a good routine and how to be a good overall surfer, both in comp and out.”

This year’s line up for the ISA World Junior Champs looks to be the strongest yet and includes the hugely talented Lukas Skinner, 2021 Boardmasters Junior Girls champ Alys Barton and Olympic Skateboard Bronze medalist Sky Brown!

Follow the action at isasurf.org

About dryrobe®
Founded by Cornish surfer Gideon Bright, the original dryrobe® change robe that we know today evolved from a design concept initially created by Gideon’s mum. It has since developed into the ultimate waterproof and weatherproof kit for those who regularly go in the water, whether that’s surfing or any other watersport. Designed to allow you to change in any location, it is the ultimate companion for anyone who loves the outdoors, offering the ultimate protection from what nature has to offer.

Available from £140- £160. Check out the range and learn more at dryrobe.com

By the early 80’s Mike Boyum had established the Blambangan Surfing Club, The worlds first surf camp. It’s fair to say that Gerry Lopez and Peter McCabe were regulars. Gerry had recently landed a role in Conan The Barbarian, in the downtime between shots he was building model planes and painting them in camouflage.

Lopez wrote to McCabe to order boards for their next G-Land trip and requested they painted in camo, they soon realised the camo reduced the glare off the boards, saving their eyes and allowing them to surf all day long, they just kept doing them after that.

• Women’s Semifinalists and Men’s Quarterfinalists Decided
• Indonesia’s Rio Waida Raises the Bar at Manly
• Fresh Faces Lock into Women’s Semifinals
• More Available at WorldSurfLeague.com

The GWM Sydney Surf Pro presented by Rip Curl, the second stop of the 2022 World Surf League (WSL) Challenger Series (CS), has continued at Manly Beach today with some of the best conditions of the entire event for the early heats of the day with Manly delivering super clean two-to-three foot waves which provided the perfect canvas for some of the best performances of the event. Before conditions deteriorated in the early afternoon, the event saw the completion of the men’s Round of 16 as well as the women’s Quarterfinals.

Waida and Rodrigues Raise the Bar in Heat of the Event
Rio Waida (IDN above) and Michael Rodrigues (BRA) have been standouts all week at the GWM Sydney Surf Pro, both posting some of the highest scores of the event and both displaying incredible power, finesse and progression in their surfing. The pair looked destined for Finals Day until they matched up with each other in the Round of 16. In the best conditions of the day, Rodrigues got the ball rolling, posting an 8.17 on his opening wave, then backing it up with a 9.50 shortly after. With his back firmly against the wall, Waida needed something special if he was going to lock in a Quarterfinal berth here in Manly, and special is what he got, posting a 9.00 and an 8.80 on back-to-back rides, to take the lead and the heat win. Both surfer’s set a massive standard of backhand surfing, both going upside down in the critical section to post the top two heat totals of the event so far, in the same heat, with the Indonesian getting the nod.

“I’m really happy to win through to the Quarterfinals,” Waida said. “When I saw the waves this morning, really clean and well shaped, I was confident I can win because I know I can score well in good waves. I’ll rest now and cheer on my fellow Indonesian Ketut Agus who surfs later today and I’ll be ready for finals day tomorrow.”

Continuing the trend set by Waida and Rodrigues (above) in the heat prior, North Narrabeen local Jordy Lawler (AUS) and San Clemente’s Jett Schilling (USA) put on an incredible back and forth battle in their Round of 16 clash this morning. As Manly continued to dish-up incredible conditions, both surfers took to the air, each posting excellent single wave scores to ensure the battle would go down to the wire. Although Lawler landed one of the biggest aerials of the event, he fell short of raking the win, meaning he will need to wait another year before he can look for another win here at Manly. Schilling on the other hand has progressed into the Quarterfinals where he will take on good friend and fellow San Clementeian Kade Matson (USA), who is also assured a career best result here at Manly.

“I knew that would be a high scoring heat and that’s how it played out – Jordy is a great surfer,” Schilling said. “The waves are really good and hopefully for tomorrow’s finals day we get it this good again. This is definitely my best result so I’m stoked right now. I just want to keep it going.”

Women’s Semifinalists Decided at GWM Sydney Surf Pro
With the women’s Quarterfinals being run today at Manly, there are now only four competitors left in the draw who have a chance of hoisting the Harbor Bridge Trophy, and three of them have never won a major event in their careers. With Nikki van Dijk (AUS, above) claiming a win here in 2016, it will be up to Sophie McCulloch (AUS), Teresa Bonvalot (PRT) or Keala Tomoda-Bannert (HAW) to take a maiden CS win here at Manly tomorrow.

While Bonvalot and Tomoda-Bannert have been posting some of the most impressive totals of the event, it was McCulloch who took the biggest win today, eliminating event favourite and current rankings leader Caitlin Simmers (USA) in their Quarterfinal matchup. Although Simmer’s took an epic win over fellow Californian Kirra Pinkerton (USA) in their Round of 16 heat where both competitors scored excellent heat totals, she was unable to repeat the dose against McCulloch who looked sharp on her backhand on her way to the heat win in deteriorating conditions.

“Semifinals is always better than Quarterfinals so I’m super happy with that win,” McCulloch said. “Caity (Simmers, above)) has been on fire so it was always going to be a tough heat and it definitely was a grindy one. At the end of the day I just want to give my best effort and I feel like I did that today. I have made a couple of errors that I’d like to clean up come Finals Day but either way I’m stoked to be in the semis.”

Former Championship Tour Surfers Onto Finals Day
A handful of former CT competitors who are looking to requalify to the Championship Tour continued their run at Manly today with the likes of Deivid Silva (BRA, above), Ryan Callinan (AUS), Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA), Imaikalani deVault (HAW) and Nikki van Dijk (AUS) all progressing through their heats. Van Dijk was the standout of this group, posting an excellent two-wave combination of 16.97 to overcome Californian up and comer Alyssa Spencer (USA) in the Quarterfinals. Van dijk is through to the Semifinals as she eyes off a second title here at Manly.

“Despite the rain and wind the waves were good out there and it was great to get through and make the Simi’s,” van Dijk said. “Alyssa is a really good surfer and I was nervous going into that heat, especially after she opened the heat with an excellent 8 point ride, but I stuck to my plans, chose the right waves and managed to take the win.”

The 2022 GWM Sydney Surf Pro presented by Rip Curl Challenger Series and WSL Longboard Tour events will run at Manly Beach through May 24, 2022. For more information, please visist WorldSurfLeauge.com or check the free WSL App.