prosurfinglive.com/live/surfingaustralia/asf/

Crowned at North Haven beach as the Australian Stand Up Paddleboard Champion for 2012, Beau Nixon took the title against the most talented competitors the country has to offer. In what can only be described as a nail biting final the open men put on a jostling Stand Up Paddleboard stouche for spectators and judges.

The lead up to the final saw a great exchange of aerials in the semis, narrowing it down to the final four wasn't easy but contending the open mens was defending champion Jackson Close (Coolangatta, QLD), Geoff Breen, (Sunshine Beach, QLD), Beau Nixon (Tweed Heads, NSW) and keahi De Aboitiz (Sunshine Beach, QLD).

The three Queenslanders surfed solidly, aerial master De Aboitiz drove some big bottom turns before throwing it right up above the lip. Narrowing the gap between himself and first, before Close ripped a high speed top turn furthering himself from his competition with an 8.10, putting his competitors in a tough position.

Close held the strong hold for the last five minutes, De Aboitiz kicked his surfing up a gear with a huge front side air, but Nixon drove right down the line for a big floater and the 7.5 was enough to take the lead and claim the title back for NSW.

"I feel amazing I've trained so hard for this event, I'm so glad I came away with a win, I'm over the moon right now, I really can't describe it", said an elated Nixon after winning the open mens final that changed leads on numerous occasions.

"It went back and forth, I had a strategy for this to just sit and wait for the good ones. With twenty five minutes you have a lot of time out there so its kind of a good thing to just sit and wait".

"I knew Jackson could pull anything out of the hat, he did it last year and the year before, but I just stuck to my guns and I knew I had the 8.5 backing me so I stuck to my strategy and my plan. Coming home with this win is amazing", said Nixon.

Shakira Westdorp (Tugun, QLD), had a solid cheer squad from the sunshine state as Stand Up Paddleboarders filled the surfing and racing components. Defending her title in conditions that turned with the afternoon wind, Westdrop was happy to win against such a strong field of surfers.

"I'm stoked the level of the girls surfing has improved so much over the last couple of years. It's only going to get harder and harder, so to to take it out over the other girls who have been ripping is great", said Westdorp.

"It was a little bit unexpected, I could hear that Erin and I were pretty close, I could see the girls were getting waves but I was just trying to paddle over and get the rights. It was really hard, the winds come up and it was hard to get a wave that allowed you to do a number of moves", said Westdorp, who won her second Australian Stand Up Paddleboard Title in a row.

Wrapping up the day in afternoon winds, the Technical Sprint race put competitors to the test for 8km at North Haven Beach, Port Macquarie. Kelly Margetts won with fellow Queenslanders Lincoln Deus and Jake Jensen in second and third place.

Results

prosurfinglive.com/live/surfingaustralia/asf/results.php

RESULTS


OPEN MEN
1st: Beau Nixon (Tweed Heads, NSW)
2nd: Jackson Close (Coolangatta, QLD)
3rd: Keahi De Aboitiz (Sunshine Beach, QLD)
4th: Geoff Breen (Sunshine Beach, QLD)

OPEN WOMEN
1st: Shakira Westdorp (Tugun, QLD)
2nd: Erin Dark (Gerringong, NSW)
3rd: Terrene Black (Long Jetty, NSW)
4th: Kristianna Page (VIC)

OVER 40 MENS
1st: John Christensen (North Curl Curl, NSW)
2nd: Andrew Cassidy (Mona Vale, NSW)
3rd: Noel Graham (Lennox Head, NSW)
4th: John Tackle (VIC)

TECHNICAL SPRINT
1st: Kelly Margetts (QLD)
2nd: Lincoln Deus (QLD)
3rd: Jake Jensen (QLD)


Some photos here..
ww7.celebsgrid.com

Congratulations Kelly. Great to see a champion bloke as the Champ!

rager said...

Congratulations Kelly. Great to see a champion bloke as the Champ!

Nice one Kelly

paul.j said...

laceys lane said...

looks like kelly was the only guy on a custom, lahui kai, and won it



think karla is on a custom jm too- thats a great result for her

Look out you will get green thumbs for that!!

The chicks race was one of the best battles I have seen for ages in the BOP racing!!! Well done to both Karla and Ang for a good race.

yeah, that must have been a real ding dong battle. angie is paddling so well at the moment and well karla is only going to get better real fast

well done

Surf final Had some of the best surfers in the world!!! Truly impressive

RJK said...

Question is who will win the race home??

Oh I think we will!!!

Well what a race! Awesome job by everyone in those tough conditions.
Karla and I had one hell of a battle back and forth!! Karla totally deserved the win after catching that last bump that turned into a big bump and I missed it.
So stoked and even more stoked to be heading back to Peru for isa games.
X Angie

Did the open men and women start at the same time as the men ? Do the times get changed
Good work wa 3 good job

I think it was 2min, but I'm not 100% sure on that could've been longer. X Angie

chrisparker said...

Sounds like it was a 2 minutes 10 second delay for women/over 40's.

Chris, spoke to Luke (from Sufing NSW) yesterday. It was meant to be a 2 min delay but it was way longer than that. Kelly had already gone round the first ocean buoy and was rounding the first beach buoy when we started. Unfortunately, Luke didn't have the exact timing difference between the starts. My suggestion to him was to have the 2 races seperate next time as it was really impossible to work out who was in each race...OR have everyone go together to an initial buoy that is about 1km offshore.

kissa said...
My suggestion to him was to have the 2 races seperate next time as it was really impossible to work out who was in each race...OR have everyone go together to an initial buoy that is about 1km offshore.

Kissa, I have to disagree on holding one mass start. I thought the staggered start worked really well. It made it a bit harder to keep track of who was on which lap, but fulfilled the need for having lots of action for the whole race and all within easy viewing distance. It also meant that the first two legs were only chaotic, not downright dangerous.
My only suggestion would be to keep track of the delay time so we could compare times across the classes. I believe the delay had been planned to be one minute but was extended to allow more of the open men to clear the first leg. Because of this they changed from a time delay to starting you when Kelly rounded the second mark.
As for holding the races separately, if the event grows and the racing is held at a reasonable time that would be great, however at this event I think the racers in the second start would have been pretty pissed with a start 45 mins later (after the open race had finished). It was pretty close to 5pm by then so the last girls would have still been paddling as the presso started back in town. This would have been hard on you guys, who registered at 10:30 to then wait until 5 to race, and for the spectators, who were thoroughly entertained for the hour or so it took for the combined race to run, but may have lost interest with another 1/2 hour of racing.
I think surfing Australia were on the mark with everything but keeping track of the elapsed time between the starts. With this small detail noted it would have easily been the best run bop race we have seen in oz so far. Even without knowing the time difference, the race was hard to fault.

Edit, if Jacko was with Luke and they held out until 3:10 elapsed then all the timing stuff above is a moot point, I thought they changed from a time to a distance at some point, but was relying on the commentary.

Times are easy to work out just take 3:10 of your time it's that easy!! That was the delay to the start. It was going to be 2 mins but with the open men going so slow they were still coming in when everyone else was ment to start so they just held the start a bit until it was safe and clear for everyone to get out!!

I was going off sup racer times, Are the times not correct?

Sorry...I'll go back to my hole......Pete Dorries is not even on the supracer results i was looking at?

Overall # Name Time Division Div #
1 Kelly MARGETTS 0:33:45 Men (Open) 1
2 Lincoln DEWS 0:35:20 Men (Open) 2
3 Jake JENSEN 0:35:54 Men (Open) 3
4 Dylan MAGEE 0:36:32 Men (Open) 4
5 Troy PEASE 0:36:52 Men (Open) 5
6 Beau O'BRIAN 0:37:03 Men (Open) 6
7 Paul JONES 0:38:18 Men (Open) 7
8 Peter DORRIES 0:38:25 Men (Over 40) 1
9 David KISSANE 0:39:05 Men (Over 40) 2
10 Steve WALKER 0:41:17 Men (Open) 8
11 Andy DAVIES 0:41:59 Men (Open) 9
12 Dale CHAPMAN 0:42:03 Men (Over 40) 3
13 Peter MYER 0:42:55 Men (Open) 10
14 Ryan KECK 0:43:03 Men (Open) 11
15 Kai BATES 0:43:58 Men (Open) 12
16 Karla GILBERT 0:44:23 Women 1
17 Ben CHALMERS 0:44:43 Men (Open) 13
18 Anglea JACKSON 0:44:46 Women 2
19 Cameron MCKAY 0:45:08 Men (Open) 14
20 Marcus TARDREW 0:45:25 Men (Open) 15
21 Luke FRENCH 0:45:34 Men (Open) 16
22 Alain TEURQUETIL 0:45:51 Men (Over 40) 4
23 Heath MELDRUM 0:45:54 Men (Open) 17
24 John CHRISTENSEN 0:45:58 Men (Over 40) 5
25 Noel GRAHAM 0:46:05 Men (Over 40) 6
26 Michael STOKES 0:46:34 Men (Over 40) 7
27 Rodger GOODWIN 0:46:41 Men (Over 40) 8
28 Sondra PURSER 0:47:20 Women 3
29 Nat GOHL 0:47:27 Men (Over 40) 9
30 Rodger SAUNDERS 0:47:44 Men (Open) 18
31 Michael JENKINS 0:48:12 Men (Over 40) 11
32 Terrene BLACK 0:48:36 Women 4
33 Scotty MAC 0:49:02 Men (Over 40) 10
34 Molly WALKER 0:50:05 Women 5
35 Dean ELCOAT 0:50:09 Men (Open) 19
36 Alison FULLAGAR 0:50:49 Women 6
37 Michelle ENGLAND 0:54:44 Women 7
38 Jack BLEACH 0:54:46 Men (Open) 20
39 Justin ORMOND 0:56:04 Men (Open) 21