Domestic surf season disrupted by Covid

On top: Ollie Tong (pictured at last year's Summer Slam) won the most improved surfer and the U12 title at last year's Gisborne Boardriders' annual awards and will be hoping to utilise his local knowledge to dominate this year's National Primary School competition, now in December. Picture by Paul Rickard

CONTINUED Covid-19 restrictions on outdoor events forced organisers on Tuesday to cancel the National Scholastic Surfing Championships.

This comes as a particular blow to Gisborne surfers as it coincides with the postponement of the Sticky Johnson Primary School Championships presented by Skullcandy, which were to be held in Gisborne. They were scheduled for the first weekend of the holidays on October 2 and 3, and will now be held on December 4 and 5, event restrictions permitting.

Gisborne Boardriders surfing development officer Flo Bub said they had been liaising with the national surfing body and he was happy they were able to find a new date that fits into both organisations' calendars.

“I think it's sad it's postponed, but it's a good opportunity to have it in December,” he said.

“The water is warmer for the little ones than it normally is in October.”

Being a two-day event made rescheduling much easier for this event, and with the support of Gisborne Boardriders and the South Island Surfing Association, a backup date was determined.

The two events would have been the focal point of the October school holidays for young surfers throughout Aotearoa, with well over 200 entries received in total.

The cancellation this week follows government guidelines retaining the 100-person capacity at outdoor events under Alert Level 2.

“We simply can't meet the guidelines currently in place and despite some best laid plans around scheduling at events and limiting those at the beach, in reality, each event would have attracted well over 100 people at any time of the day,” said Surfing New Zealand's Ben Kennings.

The National Scholastic Championships were scheduled for Taranaki in the second week of the holidays (October 11-15) and the event has been held annually since 1989. Twelve regional teams from around the country were to compete and challenge defending champions Canterbury for the title.

The cancellation of the Scholastic Championships will be particularly tough for participants to swallow after having qualified for regional teams, trained, and fundraised for months to get there.

“Like many young sports people around the country that have had their final junior seasons disrupted, we have a number of surfers that were eyeing their final year in age groups, hunting individual titles and participating as part of teams that have built depth in previous years to challenge for the overall shield,” Kennings said.

“These young surfers won't get that opportunity now, which is a real bummer.”

The National Scholastic Championships consist of eight age group divisions for males and females across both shortboard and longboard disciplines. Up to 140 surfers were expected to contest the event this year.

The 2021 National Scholastic Surfing Championships are sanctioned by School Sport NZ, which has backed the decision to cancel and the event is also supported by the New Zealand Sports Collective and Sky Sport Next.