South Africa netted three gold, a silver and two bronze medals. Team South Africa’s hopes of scoring a third consecutive gold in the team event was dashed by a mere 260 points when Australia beat us 10456 to 10196.

But individually, Chris Knutsen and Heather Clark did us proud by defending their titles in the Grand Kahunas and women’s Masters respectively. Andrew Banks from Port Shepstone won his first ISA world title in the Masters event. “I feel extremely happy. This is the reason I came here.”

Andre and David Malherbe, the two brothers from East London, were responsible for the bronze medals, with Andre coming third in the Grand Masters and David in the Kahunas.

Clark’s achievement is all the more remarkable considering that she was in a life-threatening car accident less than a year ago.

East Londoner Wayne Monk placed equal ninth overall in the Masters division, Rob Moore-Boyle from Durban came seventh in the Grand Masters and fellow Durbanite and SA team captain Marc Wright, placed sixth overall in Panama.

Well done, everyone!

- According to the latest update from Panama, all of our surfers are still alive in the competition at the Panama ISA World Masters Surfing Championship! This means that South Africa is tied for first place with Brazil and Australia. The winners will be determined tomorrow, 4 September 2010. Good luck, guys and gal!

- In the mean time, back in home surf, the Billabong Junior Series has gotten underway in Herold’s Bay, near George, after organisers made the decision to relocate the event from Victoria Bay in search of better waves. The move paid off and now South Africa’s top junior surfers, including the likes of Dylan Lightfoot, Sarah Baum, Bianca Buitendag, Tarryn Chudleigh, Alice McGregor, SA Open champion Chantelle Rautenbach, Kirsty Delport, Benji Brand, Steven Sawyer, Mikey Venter, Jarred Veldhuis and Slade Prestwich are all vying for the title and one of three spots in the inaugural ASP World Junior Tour to take place in Bali at the end of October.

-For those of us who aren’t quite as skilled on the board, here’s your chance to conquer the biggest waves in some of the world’s top surf spots – including South Africa’s very own J-Bay – simply by using your fingers when you play a new game called Billabong Surf Trip. The arcade-simulation surfing game, which was developed by Billabong and Biodroid, a Portuguese game developer, can be played on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Featuring some of the best professional surfers in the world, such as Andy Irons, Taj Burrows, Joel Parkinson and Tiago Pires, players will be able to experience super-realistic waves from Billabong Surf Trip destinations such as Mundaka in Spain, Pipeline in Hawaii and many others.

The surf-art style graphics create super-realistic visuals, and the game has many highlights that create a whole world inside the surfing culture. Future platforms will include Sony PSP, Wii Ware, Xbox 360

The tournament, touted to be the greatest event in Masters surfing, is scheduled to get underway on August 27 in Santa Catalina, on the north Pacific coast of Panama. Competitors from all over the world will get a chance to prove once again that age ain’t nothing but a number, and that you don’t need to hang up the board and retire just because you’ve spent 35 years or more on earth.

The “old” toppies (and one chick) who will be representing South Africa at the Masters are:

Wayne Monk (Border), Andrew Banks (Southern KwaZulu-Natal), and their non-travelling reserve Gary van Wieringen (Southern KwaZulu-Natal), who will surf their stuff among the Over 35 (Masters) competitors.

The Over 40 (Grandmasters) representatives are Andre Malherbe (Border) and Robert Moore Boyle (Central KwaZulu-Natal), with Gareth Sepp (Border) as the non-travelling reserve.

David Malherbe (Border), Marc Wright (Central KwaZulu-Natal) and non-travelling reserve Mike Brent (Border) are the Over 45 (Kahunas).

If you’re over 50, watch out for South Africa’s Grandkahuna, Chris Knutsen (Central KwaZulu-Natal).

And the rest of the world’s women over 35 will have to know their stuff to compete against Heather “Fergie” Clark (Southern KwaZulu-Natal). This girl has been on such a roll since recovering from a terrible car accident last year. We couldn’t be prouder of her!

Coach Antoni Brodowicz echoes our opinion that this is a great team: “The masters team is the most successful surfing team to ever leave our shores,” he told theBOMBsurf.

With an impressive three out of the eight going to Panama defending their current individual world championship titles, we agree that this is definitely a team to be reckoned with.

When East Londoner Greg “The Foot” Emslie emerged as the winner of the O’Neill Cold Water Classic South Africa in Cape Town yesterday, he became the first South African to do so in home surf in the entire history of the event.

With Emslie beating Australian Dion Atkinson at Kommetjie’s Long Beach, it means that the recent South African surfing winning streak continues.

“Jordy (Smith) won the other two local events and now I’ve won the third,” Emslie said after the event. “I was thinking to myself, ‘I beat Jordy in this event, now I can’t let the guy down and lose the final’. We’ve got to keep all the trophies at home, so I’m stoked I managed to do that.”

It was close though. As the Mercury reports, Emslie’s victory over Atkinson came down to a final wave in the dying minutes of the contest.

By accomplishing this amazing feat, during which he defeated Australia’s Adam Melling in the last round, the 22-year old also managed to secure the top spot on the ASP World Title Race Rankings, knocking the legendary Kelly Slater from his perch as the world’s number one surfer.

“This is the best day of my life,” Jordy said from the podium. “The crowd on the beach has been supporting me the last few days and hearing the cheers and the vuvuzelas just get me fired up to perform. It feels like they’re pushing me along. I couldn’t have done it without them.

“I knew the swell was dying and I had to take advantage of every wave that came through.” Referring to Adam Melling, he said: “[He] is such a dangerous surfer. He’s been in form all day and I knew that if he got the waves, he would get the scores. I went out there knowing I had to open up strong.”

Adam said: “The ocean didn’t cooperate with me in the Final so that’s a shame but I couldn’t be happier. We had amazing waves and to get the best result of my career is huge. I came into Jeffreys with a long road ahead if I were to make the mid-year cut-off, and now that I’m 19th, I feel like I have a bit of a buffer heading into Tahiti. I worked really hard to get here and I want to stay here.”

The next stop on the 2010 ASP World Tour is the Billabong Pro Tahiti from August 23 through September 3, 2010.

Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay Final Results:

1 – Jordy Smith (ZAF) 17.93
2 – Adam Melling (AUS) 10.00

Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay Semi-final Results:

SF 1: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 14.83 def. Bede Durbidge (AUS) 14.40
SF 2: Adam Melling (AUS) 14.00 def. Taj Burrow (AUS) 10.67

Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay Quarter-final Results:

QF 1: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 16.43 def. Adriano de Souza (BRA) 9.20
QF 2: Bede Durbidge (AUS) 12.17 def. Sean Holmes (ZAF) 11.83
QF 3: Taj Burrow (AUS) 11.00 def. Dane Reynolds (USA) 3.66
QF 4: Adam Melling (AUS) 16.43 def. Damien Hobgood (USA) 5.67

Current ASP World Title Race Top 5 (after South Africa):

1. Jordy Smith (ZAF) 28500 pts
2. Taj Burrow (AUS) 24750 pts
3. Kelly Slater (USA) 23500 pts
4. Dane Reynolds (USA) 20000 pts
5. Adriano de Souza (BRA) 19500 pts
6. Mick Fanning (AUS) 19250 pts
7. Bede Durbidge (AUS) 18750 pts
8. Bobby Martinez (USA) 16500 pts
9. Jadson Andre (BRA) 16000 pts
10. Joel Parkinson (AUS) 14750 pts

The 25th Billabong Pro kicked off in pristine conditions in this Mecca of South African surfing yesterday, Thursday 15 July 2010. Smith, Slater, 2007 Billabong Pro winner and Aussie Taj Burrow and and reigning ASP World Champ Mick Fanning, also from Australia, all proceeded to qualify for the third round yesterday.

Fanning, who was the top scorer of the day, posting rides of 8.83 and 7.87 (out of 10) to amass a total of 16.70 (out of 20), said it was important to take every heat seriously this year. “There are so many threats and even the rookies can do damage. I feel like I’ve been surfing well all year and I’m just focusing on every heat, and hopefully that takes me to a solid result.”

The Billabong Pro will continue until 25 July 2010. For more information, visit the event’s official website.

If he doesn’t let up, this entire blog runs the risk of becoming all about him – but we won’t mind all that much. Just last week, we told you how the 22-year old South African professional surfer, who is ranked number two in the world after legendary Kelly Slater,  is nominated for Men’s Health Magazine’s “Best Men of 2010″ awards and how he is using his name and fame to get involved in environmental issues.

On Sunday night, Jordy received the highest honour at the 2010 South African Surfing Awards when he was crowned South Africa’s Surfer of the Year. As Sports24 reports, the rapturous applause this announcement was greeted with solidifies “his growing reputation as one of the world’s most exciting surfers, as well as South Africa’s reputation as one of the leaders in world surfing.”

Another of the night’s honorees was Cape Town’s big wave rider Chris Bertish, who received the ‘Pushing the Boundaries’ title.

Three more surfers were inducted into the Surfing Hall of Fame. They are Peers Pittard, Christine Petrucci (1942-2009) and Hugh Roe. The late Christine’s children were there to accept the award on her behalf.

The Surf Photographer of the Year award was given to Durban’s Greg Ewing, whose prolific and skillfully executed body of work has established him as one of the country’s leading surfing photographers.

Umhlanga’s Beyrick de Vries received The Blowing Up Performer Award, given to the country’s most exciting up and coming junior surfer under the age of 20.

Cecil Solomon from Cape Town received the Agent of Change award for “spreading the stoke of surfing among all communities and at all levels”  – which is a fitting description for the man who founded South Africa’s first non-racial surf club.

For a full list of the evening’s award recipients and honorees, read Sport24′s coverage of the event.

The Classic is the first of five events that form the South African Longboard Surfing Association (SALSA) Longboard Tour, of which the last event will be at next year’s SA Championships in Durban. More than 80 surfers are expected to compete in the Open division’s Ladies, Juniors, Over 50’s and Divas (Ladies over 35) categories.

Competitors for this weekend’s event include big names such as Brad Weare from KwaZulu-Natal, Justin Bing from Western Province, Michael Grendon and Port Elizabeth competitor Dylan McLeod. Last year’s winner, Ludi du Toit from Jeffreys Bay, will be returning to defend his title.

Border beat last year’s President’s Cup winners, Central KwaZulu-Natal, who this year came second overall. Southern KwaZulu-Natal, who hosted the event, came third, followed by Eastern Province, Western Province, Zululand, Boland and Southern Cape. This has only been the third time in 45 years that Border have managed to win the President’s Cup – which is awarded to the team with the highest total scores – but it was the fourth year in a row that they have won the SA Master’s Cup.

In the SA Cup, Central KwaZulu-Natal also took second place, with Western Province in third followed by Eastern Province, Boland, Zululand and Southern Cape.

The Master’s Cup second place went to Southern KwaZulu-Natal, who beat Central KwaZulu-Natal by one point. Eastern Province came fourth, followed by Zululand, Western Province, Southern Cape and Boland.

Greg Emslie won the SA Open Men’s title and also received his national team blazer as the first member of the SA team that will compete in the ISA World Surfing Games in Peru later this year.

The SA Masters selectors will use the results of the Over 35, Over 40, Over 45 and Over 50 age groups to select trialists for the SA Masters Team that will compete in the ISA World Masters Championships in Panama in September. South Africa is the two time defending World Masters Champions.

Other individual winners include legendary five time SA Men’s champion, ISA World Over 50 champion and multiple national champion in other divisions, Chris Knutsen of Central KwaZulu-Natal; Leonard Giles from Southern Cape who won gold in the Over 55 age group; and 2001 SA Champion Shane Thorne of Central KwaZulu-Natal, who won the Over 35 division.

The younger surfers also held their own with Beyrick de Vries, the SA Junior team captain, coming third in the Men’s Final and SA Junior team member Tanika Hoffman also coming in third in the Women’s Final.

For complete results, visit surfingsouthafrica.co.za

The ten young female surfers who have been invited to take part in the 2010 Roxy Invitational to take place in Ponto d’Oura in Mozambique later this month, have been announced.

The event, presented by Saltwater GIRL Magazine, will feature a mix of novices, title holders and experienced professionals. An invitation to the event is not only an incredible honour, but since competitors vie for an impressive amount of prize money (the first-place winner gets a cool R10 000), invites are therefore quite sought-after. Another enticement is that the competitors will be staying at the Turtle Cove Resort in Tofo. So when they’re not battling it out in the surf, they will be able to unwind with yoga, skin diving and horse riding.

The invited surfers from South Africa are Kirsty Delport, Chantelle Rautenbach, Sarah Baum, Heidi Palmboom, Tarryn Chudleigh, Alice McGregor, Holly Armstrong and Faye Zoetmulder. They will be surfing against internationals such as Philippa Anderson and Paige Haggerston, both from Australia.

The event will be taking place from 23 May to 1 June 2010.