Surf Athletes
We all like to think we are surfers who “could have” made it. These surf athletes actually are making it. From underground heroes to rising groms – this is where we lay bare the best talent in the country.
Tane Bowden has finished third at the 2019 Lake Macquarie City Pro Junior held at Red Head Beach and Catherine Hill Bay, NSW, at the weekend. The result boosts him to sixth overall on the Men’s Junior Tour. Aussie duo Molly Picklum and Caleb Tancred claimed victory over an impressive......
Cracking it in the pressure cooker that is the Australian surfing hotbed is no easy feat. Which makes 18-year-old Te Kehukehu Butler’s rise so impressive. In 2018 he was embroiled in a season-long battle with Callum Robson, of Evans Head, NSW, in the WSL Australasian/Oceania Junior Qualifying Series (JQS). At......
Raglan’s Caleb Cutmore and Christchurch surfer Tegen Bishop rose to the top at the first round of the Billabong Grom Series presented by Oceanbridge today at Mount Maunganui. Conditions dropped to a mere 0.5m swell with offshore winds at the Tay Street event site – just enough to complete the event.......
There is no doubting that Piha local Elliot Paerata-Reid is on a performance surge right now. His 2018 Indonesian season was sensational in and out of competition, but the Mega Swell of late July saw him paddling into some of the most intense waves ever witnessed at his favourite Indo......
Filmmaker Jono Smit and pro surfer Elliot Paerata-Reid team up for a Catlins strike mission only to have the rug pulled out from under them as the weather bomb flushes up the Tasman at the last minute. In an opportunistic stroke of madness they give chase along the West Coast......
If Oakura pro surfer Ariana Shewry was looking for a top start to her 2019 season then she nailed it today with a second place at the Women’s Sunset Pro Junior in Hawaii. One of Oahu’s most iconic competitive venues, Sunset Beach, delivered breezy, challenging conditions throughout the day with consistent......
Billy Stairmand has beaten good friend Ricardo Christie to kick off 2019 in the best way possible claiming his seventh title at the Health 2000 National Surfing Championships completed at Stent Road in Taranaki today. Taranaki turned on another stellar day of surf and weather with clean 1.5m waves and......
Perfect Taranaki waves laid the platform for New Zealand’s top surfers as the contest whittled down to the semifinalists at the Health 2000 National Surfing Championships held at grunty Stent Road this week. The head-to-head battle between WQS regular Billy Stairmand and good friend and WCT qualifier for 2019, Ricardo......
Jono Smit captures Billy Stairmand during some down time away from the pressure of the World Qualifying Series. Raglan’s favourite surfer has battled funding issues as he campaigns the toughest qualifying series in the world. Let’s hope 2019 brings him the breakthrough results he needs. Credits: Filmed by Jono Smit......
Paige Hareb is New Zealand’s most successful surfer and her achievements, as the World Surf League (WSL) season for 2018 come to a close, stand testament to her competitive character and determination. The 2018 season was her seventh year competing on the WSL Championship Tour and she was thrown every......