“We’re just giving the crew some juice”. The words of Shaun Tomson talking to Zigzag magazine a year ago when he was out here as key note speaker for the South African Legends Gala Dinner.
In January, February and March this year the Legends hosted and ran a series of three events, The Future Legends Series. Talented junior surfers from all surf zones of South Africa were invited and from accumulated results over the three events the winners emerged. The highest scoring four under thirteen boys, four under 16 boys and four under 16 girls attended an intensive four day coaching course in Durban this weekend (16-19 June 2016).
These were:
U13 Boys
1. Mitch Du Preez (EL)
2. James Ribbink (DBN)
3. Nate Spaulding (DBN)
4. Alex Townsend (CT)
U16 Girls
1. Kirsty McGillivray (JBay)
2. Anna Jellema Butler (CT)
3. Sne Makubu (DBN)
4. Olivia Izzard (DBN)
U16 Boys
1. Calvin Goor (Salt Rock)
2. Koby Oberholzer (DBN)
3. Angelo Faulkner (JBay)
4. Luke Slijpen (CT)
Unfortunately Angelo Faulkner and Anna Jellema Butler were injured and were unable to attend.
(STARTING TOP LEFT) James Ribbink, Koby Oberholzer, Kirsty McGillivray, Nate Spalding, Sne Makubu, Alex Townsend, Olivia Izzard, Luke Slijpen, Calvin Goor and Mitch Du Preez.
HPSA head coach Bruce Jackson with the help of the rest of the coaching team designed a program that encompassed surf coaching and video analysis and a judging presentation by Johno Hutchinson. Workshops were hosted by Core Performance and Wellness Clinic that covered stretching, diet, sports psychology, biokinetics, core development and fitness employing their team of professionals.
Core Performance and Wellness Centre activities
Each day started at 6.30am and many ‘heats’ were surfed in different conditions varying from small offshore wave to chunky heaving barrels on Sunday, the last day of the course.
Early start on all four days.
Calvin Goor
Sne Makubu
Luke Slijpen
Mitch Du Preez
Nate Spalding
Luke on Thursday.
Bruce Jackson reiterated the objective “Our aim is to empower these groms with knowledge and hopefully they will take something away from this so they can improve their competitive surfing.”
A big shout out to coaches Jason Ribbink, Spider Murphy, Peter Lawson, Chad DuToit and especially Bruce for their time and expertise. To Johno Hutchinson for his unrivaled judging insight, Clint Grobelaar and his team of professionals at Core Performance and Wellness Clinic (especially Stretch for the early morning beach start) and to Graham Cormac for putting it all together. And thanks again to Pat McCarthy at SMG for supplying the transport.
We’re hoping the crew got some juice.
© Pat Flanagan