Sunday July 4, 2020 - With a display of huge airs, powerful surfing and excellent tube riding Beyrick de Fries took down fellow Durbanite Chad du Toit in an awesome final that was very pleasing on the eye in the Mr Price Pro Ballito boys final today! Beyrick had a combined score of  18.35 out of a possible 20 to Chad’s 15.25. Both these surfers in the boys final today are know for their big airs and I often found that Beyrick rides the wave too softly in the beginning looking for the big air at the end, but today he really impressed me, surfing top to bottom with speed and power throwing big spray and then still finishing with a huge air, hence he was rewarded the massive scores, Well Done Beyrick!

In the Lady’s final Sarah Baum once again showed that she is one of the best Surfers in South Africa and showed signs of a great future! The young goofy footer surfed powerfully with confidence to out surf East London’s Alice McGregor scoring a total of 13 out of 20 to Alice’s 6.5.

The waves today in the Mr Price Pro Ballito where a little inconsistent and tricky but when the set waves came they where really good offering everything from great tube rides to big turns and high Aerial moves!

The weather was grand down here today and the atmosphere was awesome with families, locals and holidaymakers soaking up the sun and the hot action!

Check in again tomorrow for my view on the days action on Big Foot Blog.

Greg Emslie

IMAGE: JULIAN WILSON

Julian Wilson is the man of the week as the 22 year old took out the 6 Star Sri Lankan Airlines Pro held in perfect 4-6 foot waves at Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka.
 
Wilson entered into the event as a Wild Card, and never looked backed as he dominated every heat to the final, where he then really reveled in the perfect point break surf, taking down hot USA riser, 19 year old Nat Young with a combined heat score of 14.33 to Young’s 8.83!
 
Julian has become many people’s favourite surfer with his new school innovative approach to surfing, and many hope that this will be the year he qualifies for the World Tour and a shot at a world title!
 
As for Arugam Bay, well this looks like a classic wave and I am sure they will be getting a lot more touring surfers there after the perfect waves shown at this epic right hand point break during the event!
 
On the local front I was pleasantly surprised to see the level of our Masters surfers at the South African masters trials in East London. The guys went off at very nice 5 foot Nahoon Reef and the competition was hot.

I saw some 9 point rides going down that were 9 point rides in any contest, the guys where getting shacked and belting the heck out of the waves! Well done to all the guys who made the team, you guys ripped and it was a pleasure surfing classic Nahoon Reef with you guys all day on Friday before the event, that was sick!
 
Well the Mr Price Pro Ballito is here, the guys are all back in town and ready to go! I’ve got butterflies! I spoke to Jordy Smith as he arrived back in South Africa, he is super excited to be home and cant wait to compete in home waters in front of his home crowd!
 
Remember the press conference and registration for the Mr Price Pro Ballito will be held on Sunday July 4 at La Montagne, starting at 2pm. The press conference will include Jordy Smith, Taylor Knox, Travis Logie, Ricky Bassnett and myself.
 
Then that evening will see the Zigzag South African Surfing awards where South Africa’s best surfers will be recognised for their achievements, remember to come dressed as 80’s!
 
See you at the Mr Price Pro Ballito,
 
Greg Emslie

IMAGE: RICKY BASNETT FORMER MR PRICE PRO CHAMPION

Well there’s not much waiting left now for the Mr Price Pro Ballito, with just over a week to go before competition kicks off and some of the best surfers in the world take to the waters of Ballito!
 
Action will commence with registration and a press conference on Sunday July 4 at La Montagne Hotel starting at 2pm. The press conference will include surfers such as current world number 2 Jordy Smith, Taylor Knox, who is the oldest surfer on the World tour, currently still in the top 16 and winner of the Mr Price Pro in 2000, along with 2006 Mr Price Pro Winner Ricky Basnett and myself.
 
Then at 6pm on July 4, will be the 2010 South African Surfing awards where South Africa’s best surfers will be recognised for their amazing achievements in the surfing world. To top this all up, the guest speaker for the evening will be Californian Taylor Knox, who better to credit South Africa’s best surfers than Taylor, one of the most successful surfers in the world and the oldest surfer currently on Tour at age 38!
 
Warming up to the Mr Price Pro Ballito is the Sri Lankan Airlines Pro at Arugam Bay in Sri Lanka, which is currently underway. The waves thus far for the event have been great with really fun right hand point conditions. The South African contingent have not had a great showing at the event except for Ricky Basnett, 2006 Mr Price Pro winner who seems to find his form this time of year. Ricky had this to say to me via facebook:
 
“I am loving Sri Lanka, it’s an awesome place and Arugam bay is a super fun wave! I am feeling really good and I think I have finally found my rhythm again, so it will be great to get a good result before coming home to the Mr. Price Pro Ballito, a contest I really love!”
 
That’s it for this week, to all the competitors, train hard and bring you’re A-game, and to all the spectators, get ready for some hot action, its going to GO BALLISTIC!
 
Greg Emslie

IMAGE: Beyrick De Vries

Its 5am, I am in JBay and it’s freezing cold, there is snow on the mountains and it cannot be more than 4 degrees outside with a howling south-wester, rain and a bit of thunder.

I am very excited, as all indications are that it is going to be pumping today, I can’t wait. It’s school holidays and there are plenty holiday makers and tourists around with the Soccer World Cup and the small town is buzzing! There are amped groms from around the country ready to push there surfing at the worlds best right hand break!
 
Guys like Mikey February are around

and doing video coaching at Supers trying to perfect the break along with the likes of Steven Sawyer. Its great to see our young up and coming surfers pushing themselves before the World Tour hits town in the hope that they can impress the international contingent and take down some big names at the same time!
 
With the Mr Price Pro Ballito just over two weeks away I caught up with another two of South Africa’s most explosive junior surfers, Beyrick De Vries and Chad du Toit , both of these surfers are not scared to go for massive airs in their heats and had this to say about the upcoming Mr Price Pro Ballito.
 
Beyrick: “Getting 9th in the recent 6 Star event in Brazil was a definite confidence booster for me and I hope I can use that confidence going into the Mr Price Pro Ballito. It would really mean a lot to me to do well in home waters with a great crowd support. The WQS is really difficult and an eye opener but I can see myself having a lot of fun with it. I am still a junior for another two years and still have heaps to achieve there. However, my goals on the World Tour is to finish in the top 100 this year so the points from Mr Price Pro Ballito are vital for me achieving my goal!”
 
Chad: “ I am really excited and amped for this years Mr Price Pro Ballito because it’s the first ASP event of the year in South Africa. Ballito is such a cool venue and I have already put in a few practice sessions there. Being a 5 star rated event is a good opportunity to get some big points and prize money. My goal is to win the event, why else would I enter?!”
 
Currently underway is the 6 Star Sri Lankan Airlines Pro from 18-24 June at Arugam Bay Sri Lanka. Good luck to all the South African’s in the event.
 
Greg Emslie

IMAGE: 2009 Winner Tanner Gudauskas

Winter has truly arrived with cold fronts, short days, the sardine run and perfect waves. This means one thing, the South African leg of the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour is around the corner and entries for the Mr Price Pro Ballito close today, June 8!

The three contest South African leg consists of the Mr Price Pro Ballito 5 Star event, the Billabong Pro JBay WCT and the O’Neill Cold Water Classic 4 Star Rated event in Cape Town. South Africa will be spoilt with the world’s most talented surfers taking to our waters and mixed with the very best local talent for a whole month of top class surfing spread along the coast!
 
Currently the world’s best female surfers are competing in the Movistar Peru Classic. South Africa’s two top ladies, Rosanne Hodge and Nikita Robb unfortunately lost out today finishing equal ninth. The women’s title race is really intensifying with world number one, Stephanie Gilmore, world number two Sally Fitzgibbons and local favorite, world number three Sofia Mulanovich all into the quarter-finals of the event!

Next week on the men’s World Tour will see the 6 star Sri Lankan Airlines Pro from June 18-24  at Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka. All of South Africa’s top One World Ratings surfers are competing over in Sri Lanka, so good luck to them over there, lets hope we get a winner before they return home for the Mr Price Pro Ballito 2010.
 
Remember to get entries in for the Mr Price Pro Ballito today! You don’t want to miss out on important points and the huge prize purse!
 
Greg Emslie

IMAGE: Greg Emslie

What an awesome week of surfing it has been with the South African National Surfing Championships taking place in St Mikes on the South Coast of KZN.

It feels great to be the SA Champ again I won’t lie, but the most awesome thing for me this week was to be a part of the winning Border team. I can honestly say the guys went there a little over confident with a very strong team, then injuries and a few early losses started to cost us. Team spirits, sticking together and helping each other out to the end is what won Border the Presidents Cup.

You are only as strong as your weakest link in a team event, and when your weakest links have lost, and are still at the beach running around helping the other team members is when you get a winning combination.
 
Events like the South African Surfing Championships are vital to growing the grassroots of South African surfing. It is really inspiring for me to see so many old faces still in the water and ripping! Guys like Chris Knutsen, Dave and Andre Malherbe, and Leonard Giles - who has had a hip replacement - are focused and doing it for their teams and surfing better than ever, this really is true spirit and the young kids look up to these guys and want to be like them!

This is why I say the SA champs are so important, starting from your local trials, when the youth see guys like myself, Shane Thorne, Beyrick de Vries, Chad du Toit, Devyn Matheys, Ant Botoletto, Wayne Monk and others, they also want to join in and be a part of the action!
 
Then you get Graham Hynes. What an all time legend! Graham was the coach for EP, however, a bunch of surfers from other provinces, including myself, would go to him for advice. He has got so much experience and knowledge to give, a true asset to South African surfing and a legend in everybody’s eyes!
 
Well done to Surfing South Africa and Southern KZN for all the hard work they put in to make this such a success. Well done to all the teams for putting on a great display of surfing and making it one of the most closely fought SA Champs ever. Between Border, KZN and Southern KZN, it went down to the wire and it was fought out in good spirit!
 
Your New South African champions are: Open men: Greg Emslie, Open women: Heather Clark, Senior men: Ben Roberts, Masters: Shane Thorn, Grand masters: Andre Malherbe, Kahunas: Dave Malherbe, Grand Kahunas: Chris Knutsen, Veterans: Leonard Giles. Presidents Cup: Border.
 
There is a break in the action on the World Surfing Tour and the next event will be the 6 Star Sri Lankan Airlines Pro from the June 18-24 in Sri Lanka.
 
Entry’s for the Mr Price Pro Ballito close on June 8, so make sure you get your entries in, you don’t want to miss this one, its going to go ballistic!
 
Greg Emslie

Image: Beyrick De Vries

All the surfing action is happening down in Brazil at the moment with Maresia Six Star Surf international taking place at Praia Mole in the picturesque city of Florianopolis in Southern Brazil.

Aritz Aranburu from the Basque Country proved victorious against the strong field of Brazilian surfers beating Brazilian journeyman Rodrigo Dornelles in an anti climax low scoring final on Saturday.

South African junior Beyrick de Vries was on fine form and finished ninth after losing to eventual winner Aritz in a seesaw battle in the round of 16. Beyrick de Vries is fired up this year and is looking for huge results and is not scared to take on the big names. Beyrick was the winner of the junior division in the Mr Price WP Open in Cape Town earlier this year and together with a host of other South African juniors including Shaun Joubert, Brandon Gibbons, Chad du Toit, Matt Bromley and Casey Grant, they are ready to show the world that South Africa has a bunch of hot juniors coming through!

With the majority of surfers in the Mr Price Pro Ballito being South Africans, you are going to see the level of surfing lifted as the young juniors mentioned above want to make a name for themselves in the big leagues. Then you add the current experienced campaigners such as Jordy Smith, Travis Logie, Royden Bryson, Dave Weare, Brandon Jackson and Rudy Palmboom. Topped off with retired experienced surfers such as myself, Shaun Holmes, Shane Thorn and Paul Canning, and you got a whole lot to fight for with USD 16000 in prize money and 2000 valuable points and a huge reputation for first place.

This week will see the Reef Wetsuits SA Championships taking place at St Mikes on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. The teams are stacked with big names as they surf it out for SA titles and team pride, and this is a perfect warm up for the upcoming South African ASP leg.

As you would have heard, I had a massive shark scare this weekend while surfing Queensberry Point with Rosy Hodge. Staying calm in the situation saved my life and I praise the lord for keeping me calm, sending me the best wave of my life to get out of there and keeping Rosy and I safe. This is the time of year they are around, so be safe and try to surf with a few people on the exposed points.

Good luck to everyone in SA Champs this week and may the best Border team win!

Greg Emslie