Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 June 2010

Surfing Double

Two great surfing events were held at the weekend. The first, the inaugural Rossnowlagh Longboard Contest attracted around 40 riders to Rossnowlagh Beach who competed across three categories - junior, ladies and senior. In the Junior Contest Craig Butler from Tramore fought off a North West challenge from Christian McLeod and Eoin O'Malley-Daly with Bosco McAuley and Dan Britton rounding out the final.

The Ladies were up next and Sophie Scott fought valiantly to take 4th spot behind fellow clubmates Amy-May Garvey in 3rd and Naomi Britton in 2nd, but it was Ione Byrne from Aughris who took home the inaugural win.

Pulling quite a crowd, the Senior Event was a nail biter. In 4th place was Emmet O'Doherty from Bundoran; Patrick Cassidy from Enniskillen took 3rd place; Stephen Conwell from Rossnowlagh rode his new board to 2nd place with a very impressive John McCurry from Causeway Coast taking first place.

Sponsors included The Surfers Bar, Mello Cafe, The Gaslight Restaurant, The Smugglers Creek and Fin McCool Surf School & Lodge and the word is that the event will be back next year.

In the west of the country, the Irish leg of the Quiksilver King of the Groms took place in Strandhill, Co Sligo attracting Ireland’s top under 16 surfers. The top two Irish surfers from the weekend’s event were Iarom Madden Travers (Bundoran) who took the U16 Boys title and Gearoid Mc Daid (Sligo) who took the U14 Boys title. both of which won places at the European final that is scheduled to take place on the 30/31August in Zarautz, Spain. Europe’s top 32 young surfers will meet to surf off for two places at the World final.