| Written by Ben Kennings, Surfing NZ | |||
| Thursday, 13 January 2011 | |||
The massive four metre swells pounding the Dunedin coastline were no match for New Zealand’s number one surfer today (Thursday 13th of January) with Mahia’s Richard Christie dominating his opponents at the 2011 Hyundai National Surfing Championships today. The event is the second of six events on the 2010/11 SOL Series and is being held at St Clair Beach, Dunedin. Today a massive 4.0m swell and strong southerly winds turned the ocean into a wild winter-like state. Christie blazed a path through the water scoring the day’s highest heat score of 15.0 out of a possible 20 points. Christie scored individual wave scores of 8.17 and 6.83 with a series of big committed turns on both his forehand and backhand. Such was the domination of Christie’s performance, he was the only surfer in the Open Men’s Division to score double digits in the challenging conditions. Many surfers struggled to get more than one or two waves despite the heats being extended to 25 minutes duration. Whangamata surfer Matt Scorringe made a comeback to the competitive arena after spending the best part of the last 12 months overcoming cancer. Now in remission, the 26 year old surfer has been surfing around his home town for the past two months. However, today was the first time he donned a competitors vest. Scorringe won his heat scoring 9.20 to progress alongside Adam Grimson (Gis), together the two surfers defeating Cale Tolley (Mnt) and Jake Scott (Dun). Scorringe now confronts the number one seed at the event, Jay Quinn (Gis). Quinn won the first event of the SOL Series at his home town of Gisborne in November 2010. Raglan’s Ben Poulter dominated his opponents in much the same fashion as Christie scoring 14.1 out of a possible 20 points to win his heat. Again, his opponents struggled to match his surfing with most surfing to low scoring single-digit heat scores. Other surfers to win their first round heats included Sam Willis (Gis), Leon Santorik (Rag) and Tyler Lawson (H Bay). Local surfers were represented by Nat Parsons, Luke Murphy and Josh Thickpenny who all placed second in their heats to move through to the final 32 surfers in the Open Men’s Division. Surfers in the Under 18 Boys Division got their campaigns underway in the afternoon with the dropping tide proving challenging for many of the surfers who would catch their first wave and have to run around St Clair beach and back to the channel to get back into the line up. Mount Maunganui’s Todd Doyle (Mnt) won his heat scoring 10.0 to win his heat. Doyle latched onto some good righthanders on his backhand performing be re-entries and floaters. Young Dunedin surfer Tom Bracegirdle progressed through his heat and through to the semifinals despite only catching one wave in his heat. Bracegirdle got a wave early in the heat performing two of the biggest backhand re-entries of the day to score 7.83 out of a possible 10 points – the second highest scoring wave of the day. He finished the heat in second place behind Jules Craft (Gis). Other juniors to progress in good form included Tane Wallis (Piha), Mackenzie Christie (Mnt) and Sid West (Auck). Day two will likely take place at St Clair beach with an 8.00am start. The order of events will be confirmed once officials assess the conditions in the morning. Please see below for results of day of the Hyundai National Surfing Championships, Event 1 of the SOL Surf Series (Thursday 13th January). Open Men’s Division Trials Open men’s Division Round 1 Open Men’s Division Round 2 (Yet to be surfed) Under 18 Boys Round 1 |
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