The RVCA Junior Challenge is set to start tomorrow 2 May and run until 4 May at Jeffreys Bay Lower Point.
It’s by far the most exciting and biggest junior surfing event on the calendar – apart from inter-provincial team events taking place in RVCA’s Jbay back yard.
Here are some of the finer details…
It’s going to be a busy schedule, so there will be surfing all day for three days, starting early on Friday morning. The schedule could change at any time should the contest director deem a change necessary.
Today – Thursday 1 May – is registration day. There will be a convenient registration process set up at the contest site at Lower Point between four and six pm. Apart from registration, this is also time for the competitors to pick up their insane goodie bags.
There will be a Photo Station set up at the beach throughout the event. There will be photographers capturing as many waves of as many surfers as possible over the weekend, and then putting all these photos up on three RVCA computers in the Photo Station.
All competitors will receive a Flashdrive in their goody bag courtesy of FireWire Surfboards, and they can download any images they find of themselves or their friends onto this flashdrive. Photos can either be posted onto FaceBook, or the high res versions can be printed out – with all images courtesy of RVCA.
There is also going to be the Plascon Paint Wall, on the back of one of the containers. This paint wall will open on Saturday at 11am, when the resident RVCA artist will explain what needs to be done on the paint wall, and guide the surfers-who-are-artists through it.
During the event there will also be the Nixon Weird Board event, where some of the competitors will have a chance of riding one of 8 weird boards shaped by 8 weird surfboard shapers from around the country. They are Thys Strydom, Glen D’Arcy, Glen Row, Eric Stedman, Anton Butler, Simon Fish, Dutchie and David Stubbs.
The event divisions are Boys U10, U12, U14, U16 and U20, and Girls U14 and U20. The event has a 2 Star PST rating.
On Saturday night there will be a braai down at the contest site, as well as some funky tunes playing. Good food and chilled vibes on what promises to be a fun evening.
The prize giving will be at the contest site after the event on Sunday late afternoon.
The contest venue, The Lower Point in JBay, is a classic wave on so many levels. It was discovered many years ago by some intrepid soul, and it has been one of the most popular surf destinations in the country ever since. While older sister Supertubes grinds away in the distance, the Lower Point is a high performance ramp city, conducive to state-of-the-art junior surfing.
“We can feel the excitement in the town already,” said RVCA South Africas’ Chio Kraak. “We have got so much in store for the juniors, and it’s going to be a whole lot of fun. Apart from just the competition heats, there is going to be a total buzz at the beach the whole weekend.”
Then there is wildcard slot up for grabs into the JBU Supertrial presented by RVCA. This wildcard will be awarded to the winner of the U20 Men’s division. The JBU Supertrial is an event set to take place on a single day during the month of June that will award one person a wildcard into the JBay Open ASP World Tour event.
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