Three South African women were honoured at Surfing South Africa’s Surfer of the Year Awards at the International Convention Centre in Durban on Saturday night, when Heather Clark and Tarryn Chudleigh were awarded the Women’s PST and U20 Girls’ 2007 championship trophies respectively, and Rosie Hodge’s qualification for the 2008 ASP Women’s World Tour was acknowledged.
"Yeah, I’m very happy about that, actually!," said Clark, who backed up her Women’s’ PST 2007 Champion Saturday evening title with the Billabong Open Women trophy on Sunday. "I started off my first contest in February last year, and I won it, so it was a good start for me."
After hurting her knee mountain-biking, the former world no. 3, and South African no. 1 says she’s been diligent at keeping her fitness levels up in the pool, something that came in handy in the huge surf experienced in Margate, in December last year.
"We were surfing in probably six foot, and the current was screaming. If I hadn’t been swimming, I would most probably still have been sitting on the beach, trying to get out," laughs Clark, who admits to being really happy at winning the Billabong Girls Get Out There Women’s Open championship: "It came very close between myself, Stacey Guy and Tarryn Chudleigh.
"There was a little bit of pressure going into the final of the last contest, but yeah, the outcome was that I won the actual Billabong Girls Get Out There summer series, so I was really happy with that! Like I said, there are so many good up-and-coming girls, and there are the girls that are competing on the World Qualifying Series that are there, so it’s not like a walk in the park."
After being crowned SSA’s U20 champion for 2007 on Saturday evening, gsport’s December gSTAR Chudleigh was awarded the Billabong Girls Get Out There Pro Junior title in Scottburgh on Sunday.
"I’m pretty stoked!" admitted an under-the-weather Chudleigh, having been struck low with a bug after the final Billabong event. "It’s set me up pretty good for the rest of the year, so, I’m super-happy! This has started off pretty good, last year I had a good year as well, though, so hopefully I can do better this year."
The South African Surfing Awards are held annually to honour South Africa’s best surfers and to recognise their performances during 2007 on the domestic Surfing South Africa Pro Surf Tour and on the international Association of Surfing Professionals World Qualifying Series and ASP World Championship Tour.
Over 250 guests made up of South African surfing’s newsmakers, surfing legends and upcoming stars attended the black tie affair, and the crowd assembled also acknowledged Eat London’s Rosie Hodge, who surfed well enough in the 2007 season to earn a 2008 ticket to the ASP World Championship Tour Qualifiers.
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