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Jake Elkington and Sophie Bell took the Junior Mens and Womens titles at the BOS Cape Crown presented by Billabong over the weekend. Idyllic 1 to 1.3 metre waves at Long Beach in Kommetjie produced good surfing conditions for the finals.
Local surfers dominated the results with all four Mens finalists coming from Kommetjie along with two of the four Womens finalists, despite a strong contingent of the country’s best 18-and-under surfers.
The Mens final was a see-saw affair with the lead changing hands numerous times. Eli Beukes started well before Ford van Jaarsveldt posted the first substantial score while Jake Elkington and Max Elkington had slow starts as they waited for the bigger set waves.
Beukes stayed busy on the inside before Max found a great right-hander and posted an excellent score that he followed with a mid-range score to take the lead. In the last five minutes Van Jaarsveldt put himself into contention with an explosive ride, but with just 45 seconds remaining it was Jake who produced the title-winning score on a left that he decimated with a series of vertical backhand manoeuvres that netted an 8.67.
Kommetjie resident Summer Sutton made full use of her local knowledge to dominate the Womens final, riding twice as many waves as her opponents and leading the heat until the last three minutes. Kayla Nogueira and Sarah Ingram battled to find waves with good scoring potential and Sophie Bell had produced just one excellent score as time started to run out.
But with three minutes left on the clock, Bell used her priority to catch a long right that just kept producing for the powerful natural footer and she slammed four high risk manoeuvres to take the lead. Sutton had a final opportunity to grab victory as the siren sounded to end the final but came up just short of the score required.
Adding today’s victory to his win in the first event of the season in Port Elizabeth last month, Jake Elkington now holds a significant 650 point rankings lead over Adin Masencamp with Max Elkington another 145 points further back in third spot and Koby Oberholzer in fourth.
Sophie Bell, the winner of both the open and junior Womens events in East London, is 195 points ahead of Kayla Nogueira, the winner of Port Elizabeth and Durban events, with Kirsty McGillivray sitting in third place.
BOS Cape Crown presented by Billabong Finals Results
Junior Mens
1st Jake Elkington R8,000 1,000 pts
2nd Max Elkington R4,000 750 pts
3rd Ford van Jaarsveldt R2,500 560 pts
4th Eli Beukes R2,000 525 pts
Junior Womens
1st Sophie Bell R4,000 1,000 pts
2nd Summer Sutton R2,000 750 pts
3rd Kayla Nogueira R1,110 560 pts
4th Sarah Ingram R900 525 pts
2017 WSL Africa Rankings Junior Men
1st Jake Elkington 3120 points
2nd Adin Masencamp 2470
3rd Max Elkington 2325
4th Koby Oberholzer 2235
5th Joshe Faulkner 1750
Junior Women
1st Sophie Bell 3145 points
2nd Kayla Nogueira 2955
3rd Kirsty McGillivray 2220
4th De Coning 1795
5th Taghiti Gericke 1640
Photos by Ian Thurtell
