Quiksilver Riders Blog

Beyrick de Vries helping out one of the I-Care kids in the water.

Durban – An inspiring addition to the Quiksilver Pro Junior presented by Durban and Resolution is the Quiksilver Surf Day. This is a day at the beach where Quiksilver and Durban bring together surfers from various backgrounds through their love of surfing, and have them surf and interact with professional surfers and top juniors in attendance for the Quiksilver Pro Junior. Local professional surfers like Daniel Redman, Simon Nicholson, Kyle Lane and Sarah Baum, along with the top junior surfers like Brendon Gibbens, Beyrick de Vries and Slade Prestwich will be there to surf with the kids, give advice, and help them with their surfing. The Quiksilver Surf Day will take place on Thursday 1 April, before the start of the Quiksilver Pro Junior and the Quiksilver King Of The Groms, which begin on Friday 2 April

Alan Wallace who runs I-Care for street kids, will have 8 kids at the surf day, and is happy at the prospect. “At I-Care we look after a number of homeless street kids, and it is a really great thing to be able to offer these kids a day at the beach,” commented Alan. “Quiksilver really do a good job and spoil these kids. Instead of being there to just make up the numbers, the day really gives them a sense of meaning and makes them feel special for who they are.”

There will also be 12 surfers from the Umthombo organisation (www.umthombo.org) at the Surf Day. Umthombo also runs a successful organisation for the reformation and rehabilitation of South African street children. Cyril Mquadi, a long time member of the professional surf scene, has actively been involved and is the driving force in making surfing and ocean awareness a regular activity for the Umthombo kids. Some of the kids have really taken to surfing and have shown great potential for the future.

Finally there will be 10 surfers from Umzumbe Surf Club on the South Coast at the day’s event. These guys also come from disadvantaged backgrounds but know their way around the lineup, having spent countless hours in the water and out of trouble at Umzumbe. These surfers might be slightly more proficient in amongst the waves, but they are still without many basics, as well as luxuries, that normal surfers take for granted.

Every surfer invited to attend the day’s events will receive a Quiksilver T-shirt, and there will be lunch and cold drinks served for all. Surfboards and all the necessary equipment for the day will be supplied by Quiksilver for all those children who don’t have their own surfing equipment. Proceedings will get underway at 10:30am on Thursday the 1st of April

The Quiksilver Surf Day will also be a day for Durban media and other assembled media to see how effectively these kids have taken to the water, and how much of a role surfing and the sea has played in their rehabilitation. If you would like to attend this fun day on the beach please apply for media accreditation through:

Olivia Jones
Olivia Jones Communications
cell: 082 537 8840
office landline: 031 303 9341
email: oj@oliviajones.co.za
alternate email: oliviajones@webmail.co.za

Quiksilver Pro Junior 2010 presented by Durban and Resolution – North Beach: 2-4 April

Durban – Quiksilver South Africa is proud to announce the upcoming Grade 2 ASP Quiksilver Pro Junior surfing event which will take place in Durban this Easter. The event is set to be held at North Beach and will run from the 2nd to the 4th of April 2010. The event will be bolstered by the addition of the Quiksilver King Of The Groms divisions as well as a “Future Stars” division.

The Quiksilver Pro Junior is for surfers under the age of 20 and will have a total of US$ 10,000 in prize money (R75, 000). The event will showcase a full contingent of junior surfers including the likes of on-form SA Junior Team Captain Beyrick De Vries from Durban, Brendon Gibbens and Matt Bromley, both from Kommetjie, Shaun Joubert from Mossel Bay and Dale Staples and Nick Godfrey from St Francis Bay. Durban stalwarts Chad Du Toit and Shawn Dennis will also be representing at the event which should see a strong field of over 60 of the country’s best junior surfers on Durban’s Golden Mile.

The Quiksilver King Of The Groms event is made up of two division, the premier U16 division and an U14 division. The winner of the U16 premier division will take home R5, 000 and will go with his coach to compete in the international King Of The Groms event in France in September during the Quiksilver Pro World Tour event, all paid for by Quiksilver. The winner of the International King Of The Groms event in France is rewarded with a wildcard into the Quiksilver Pro France and Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast World Tour events in 2011. The Quiksilver King Of The Groms is a SSA Sanctioned PST event and will have R19,500 in prize money on offer.

The Future Stars event will feature 8 surfers who have come through the Surfing South Africa transformation and development surfing program, who will get a chance to surf off for a spot in the Pro Junior main event. Quiksilver and Surfing South Africa decided that this event would be the perfect platform to showcase the progress that SSA has made with the transformation of the sport of surfing in South Africa.

Quiksilver South Africa Marketing Manager Dane Patterson is upbeat about the upcoming event “We are very excited about staging a Pro Junior event of this magnitude in April,” said Patterson of the event. “There is a currently a wealth of junior surfers around South Africa doing big things at the moment and to be able to get them all on Durban’s newly renovated beachfront together and competing for some serious prize money is going to be unreal. With the winner of the main event taking home US$ 2,500 and the U16 King of the Groms winner receiving a trip to France we are certain that there will be a show of some fierce and attractive surfing.”

All event information, results, videos, photo’s and surfer profiles can be found at the event mini-site after the 15th of March: www.quikprojunior.co.za

Entries are open at: www.aspafrica.com (U20) and www.surfingsouthafrica.co.za (U16 and U14).