Mount Maunganui's Kehu Butler has gained entry into his first WSL Challenger Series event. Photo / WSL
Mount Maunganui's Kehu Butler has gained entry into his first WSL Challenger Series event. Photo / WSL
"It means so much to me to be able to compete in such a massive WSL event at home in front of my friends and family."
Those were the words of Mount Maunganui surf star Kehu Butler after receiving entry to his first World Surf League Challenger Series event nextmonth, when he'll get to compete against some of the world's best surfers.
He gained one of two men's New Zealand wild card spots for the Corona Piha Pro from March 16 to March 22, with the other entry going to Piha's Elliot Paerata-Reid.
The Piha Pro which will bring a field of more than 100 of the world's best surfers to New Zealand, all looking for precious rankings points and a chance to qualify for the 2021 Championship Tour.
Fresh off a round four finish at the recent Pro Taghazout Bay in Morocco, 19-year-old Butler is in career-best form and he hopes to take that in to the Piha event. His main aim for 2020 was to move into the top 100 and compete at every challenge series event of the season as he hopes to become New Zealand's next representative on the elite Championship Tour.
"I'm stoked to have this opportunity and can't wait to see how it all plays out. I really hope to use this event to secure myself a spot at all of the major challenger series events for 2020," Butler said.
His first major win of his career was also at Piha, when he won the under 12 division of the Rip Curl Grom Search in 2010. He was just 9 at the time, and also finished fourth in the under 14 division. Since then he has continued his success on the water, winning events across New Zealand and Australia, and making his mark on the world stage.
Kehu Butler. Photo / File
Butler was ninth at the Corona Open in China last month and also won the Oceania junior qualifying series in 2018, after finishing second in the season finale at Cronulla.
WSL Asia Pacific general manager Andrew Stark described the pair as "two of New Zealand's most promising surfing talents" and said both surfers had been given a rare opportunity that, with sold results at Piha, could lead to spots at further challenger series events this year.
"Breaking into the top 100 on the qualifying rankings is a serious challenge and opportunities like this are extremely rare so we're over the moon to give two Kiwi competitors this sort of leg-up"
The pair won't be the only Kiwi hopefuls competing with two more women and two more men to be gifted a spot through the Sky Sport NZ Trials to run the day before the main event.
There will also be the likes of New Zealand surf stars Paige Hareb, Ricardo Christie, Billy Stairmand and Ella Williams, to name a few, competing.
