SURFING: The future for Australian surfing looks extremely bright after the team from Down Under won the silver medal at the 2016 International Surfing Association (ISA) World Junior Championship in the Azores Islands, Portugal.
The 12-strong team competed in under 18 and under 16 boys and girls events, performing consistently throughout the nine day event to only finish behind France in the overall standings.
“A huge congratulations is in order to all team members and staff who put in a massive effort to earn a silver medal in the biggest ISA World Junior Titles,” Australian coach Clancy Dawson said.
“You've done yourselves and Australia proud.”
Australia’s best performances came from under 16 boys representative Kyuss King and under 16 girls competitor India Robinson, both claiming silver. Harley Ross made the under 18 boys final before finishing fourth.
The sport will make its Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games after being added to the program alongside baseball, softball, karate, sports climbing and skateboarding.
Along with a host of promising juniors, Australia has a number of top ranked surfers that will be in contention for Tokyo.
Tyler Wright currently tops the women’s World Surfing League standings with six-time World Champion Stephanie Gilmore (5th) and Laura Enever (10th) both sitting inside the top ten.
In the men’s standings Matt Wilkinson currently sits in third and is joined in the top ten by 2012 World Champion Joel Parkinson (6th), Adrian Buchan (7th) and Julian Wilson (9th).
Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au
