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GRINDING FOR GOLD
Australia wins Quiksilver ISA World Juniors; Hawaii shines silver and USA nets copper
By:
Evan Fontaine
Photos: All photos: A.J. Neste/Surfing America
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April 6, 2009
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Dean Bowen and Taylor Wright took first in their respective divisions
on the final day of competition in three- to four-foot surf and powered Australia to a come from behind win at the ISA Would Junior Surfing Championships, snatching would-be gold medal honors away from Hawaii on the last heat of the day.
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Rounding out the top four was Hawaii in second, Brazil in third and the Americans in fourth. Bowen's win, though, was the exclamation point on a remarkable Australian resurgence. After competition ended on Thursday, the Australians hadn't lost a surfer yet - they were a lock for the gold. But just when it looked like the Aussies were well on their way to another team world title, they had a nightmarish Friday, hemorrhaging losses, and dropped from first to sixth in the standings. It was not the type of day you want to have heading into the weekend. But this is Australia we're talking about, and Saturday saw the side rebound, jumping back to second place - negotiating a near full recovery - by the end of the day. And as Sunday played out, it turned into a two horse race by the Boys Under 18 Final. With Bowen's clutch performance, the Aussies pulled it out... again. "It's such a big, big contest and I had a lot of heats, and I'm just over the moon. This is the contest that means the most all year to me. I'm so happy."
-- Dean Bowen, Under 18 gold medalist
"I just had a game plan and I stuck to it and it kind of paid off," Bowen said. "They all surf amazing. Miguel [Pupo] is one of the best surfers in the world. He's so hard to beat. I was scared with six minutes to go, and he only needed an 8.9, or whatever. He could get that with his eyes closed." One of the bigger competitors, physically, in the field, Bowen's power was well suited to the left point at La FAE, a wave that is conducive to on-rail, top to bottom surfing. That is, if you pick the right wave. More often than not, Bowen did and he leaves Ecuador a World Champion. "It's such a big, big contest and I had a lot of heats, and I'm just over the moon. This is the contest that means the most all year to me. I'm so happy." In the Boys Under 16 Final, Hawaiian Keanu Asing staved off elimination all week in the Repos, after losing his round four qualifying heat, and stormed back to surf an unbelievable final two days. It was evident, both from his body language in the water and his surfing, that the surfer from Hawaii was determined to leave his mark on the competition. "To come out on top is really exciting for me," Asing said. "It's the biggest thing I've ever won in my career. It's like I'm dreaming right now. "Losing in the fourth round made me so much more amped and ready to go into the Repercharge. I know the Repercharge is real hard; there's a lot of heats. I think it got me in a rhythm, where I could just keep it going; get my waves." The Girls Under 18 Final saw second place finisher a year ago, Taylor Wright, win against a stacked heat that included last year's bronze medalist, American Courtney Conlogue, Hawaiian Alessa Quizon and 2008 ISA World Junior Champion, Laura Enever. "It feels pretty freakin' awesome," Wright said. "I've waited a whole year for this moment and I've been training hard for it all year. And finally it's happening, so I'm stoked. We didn't have such a good day the other day, we hit rock bottom, pretty much. But now we've come back strong. "I just focused on my own game, I didn't really worry about the other competitors. I just focused on myself, and what I wanted to do and, yeah, it paid off. Every competitor that was here is a strong competitor, no doubt about it. Every heat is a hard heat." By contest's end, the Australians, Hawaiians and Brazilians were who most everyone thought they were, but teams to watch going into 2010 are the French (who were the surprise of the contest) and South Africans. As for the Americans, 2009 yielded almost identical results as in 2008 - a fourth place team finish and individual silver instead of a bronze. For a team that went into the week with such high expectations, they leave disappointed. Despite a horrendous day on Thursday in which the Americans lost two surfers from Under 18 Boys and two from Under 16 Boys and found themselves holding onto medal hopes by a thread, they regrouped well on Friday, climbing out of seventh and into fourth, moving ahead of Australia and Brazil. Saturday they again made progress, putting their top seed from each division into the final day, and moved up another spot in the standings. In the end, they finished where they deserved to finish based on how they surfed; you can't win World Juniors if your team is plagued by early exits. Five surfers did make the Top 10 in their respective divisions - Kolohe Andino finished fifth and Conner Coffin finished seventh in the Boys Under 16 division; Nat Young finished sixth in the Boys Under 18 division; Lani Doherty finished ninth and Courtney Conlogue finished second in the Girls Under 18 division. Conlogue's silver was the silver lining in a copper medal performance that, even Head Coach Joey Buran admitted, was a lot harder to earn this year than last. "Pretty stoked to get the silver," Conlogue said. "Going into the heat, I was just trying to stay as relaxed as I could, and I think it just came down to who got the best waves out there. Going into this, I hadn't had a silver since Tahiti, but it would have been nice to get gold, for sure. "Losing that one qualifier heat made me press the re-boot button, and let me know that I had to get my game on harder. I think that's what got me going again. Coming into this event, I didn't know what to expect and I'm going home happy." There is no competition like the ISA World Juniors. It was a relentless grind that featured a deep pool of the world's premier surfers. More often than not, the action in the water looked more like a WQS six-star than a Juniors contest. If there is one thing this contest affirmed in the heads of any of us who were watching, it is that the future is bright. MORE SURF NEWS SURFLINE HOME PAGE |