Lola Bleakley surfed brilliantly throughout the event losing out in the last seconds of the Girls U18 Longboard Final to an unbelievable wave from a Spanish surfer. Having led for the most of the final an amazing effort from Lola at the age of 14 – she’ll surely be back in two years’ time to claim her gold.
Jamie Wride, our team manger explains the level of commitment shown by the crew: ‘There is no easy way to the top of the European standings. The standard is so high with many world finalists competing in the European Games and you’ve got to be across all aspects of your game; technical skills, competition strategy and mental and physical resilience to push through a long week of heats and then dominate finals. I’m so proud of all of our team, these young athletes have grafted hard and delivered some historic performances for their country.’
Of course, it’s huge credit to our volunteer coaches and support crew – out at the Euros’ Jamie Wride, Beau Bromham, Lenka Koubek and Ben Skinner.
Dryrobe are very much part of the Surfing England family and sponsors for the junior crew, so huge thanks to them for their belief and putting back into the sport.
Thanks to Euroropean Surfing Federation and Ocean Spirit for organising such a fantastic event and our wider coaching team at home: Miles Lee-Hargraves, Karma Worthington, Jenny Briant, Damon Beveridge, Dr. Lindsay Woodford and Emily Williams for all their efforts helping the squad to prepare for the event.
It’s all the more impressive that the team has come so far without public funding. We’ve been knocking on Sport England’s door to try and change that, to bring in the support so many other sports benefit so much from.
This crew, our new European Champions, have just made those knocks much harder to ignore.
Surfing England remains a membership based organisation – not for profit, but all for surfing.
Your support means everything and we would love you to join us.