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Geelong Surfing

Girls Light Up Piping Hot Surf

Girls Light Up Piping Hot Surf

By Mark Humphrey

Go back 30 years on the Westcoast of Victoria and the iconic brand of Piping Hot littered every beach in the region along with another iconic brand Golden Breed. Making a splash back into competition surfing, the Piping Hot Surf Festival kicks off the ASP schedule in Australia for 2014.

The ASP 1 rated Piping Hot Surf Festival kicked off today on Victoria’s Westcoast. Today’s round of junior men’s and women’s was conducted at Victoria’s Jan Juc beach with the festival to move to the iconic Bells Beach tomorrow.

The day’s proceedings started off with the junior men taking to the water for round 1. The list of surfers reads through a who’s who of junior men’s surfing with Australian representatives spread throughout the field. Add to that the strong presence of local surfing talent and we are in for some hot surfing over the weekend.

In the junior women’s section rounds 1 & 2 were completed in varying conditions that ranged around the 3’ mark with winds initially strong on-shore that abated to a lighter cross-shore breeze.

With conditions being lumpy at best the women found it hard to secure waves that rolled out with the majority of scoring being marked sub 5. One of the category favourites Eden Putland dominated her heat with the day’s high score of 9.00 and then followed it up with a round of 16 win with the day’s second highest wave score of 8.75. Earlier in the day Grace Styman-Lane recorded an 8.25 wave in her heat to easily advance to the round of 16.

Heat 1 in the round of 16 was won by Lucy Callister with a combination score of 13. Billie Melinz was second with Amiya Doyle just getting the nod over Zoe Clarke. Clarke a local to Jan Juc found it hard to pick up scoring waves today with only 4 waves recorded in the heat.Lucy Callister Billie MelinzAmiya DoyleZoe Clarke

Heat 2 had Bronte Macaulay with a heat high 7.75 wave record a narrow win from Grace Styman – Lane with Steph Single 3^rd in front of Brodie Doyle.Bronte MacaulayGrace Styman-LaneStephanie SingleBrodie Doyle

Heat 3 was the closest round of 16 heats with Isabella Nichols winning by .70 from Keely Andrew with Holly Wawn and Holly-Sue Coffee rounding out the 4. Both Coffee and Andrew had more scoring waves than Nichols but a high score of 7.00 combined with her next highest was enough for Nichols to take out the heat.Isabella NicholsKeely AndrewHolly WawnHolly-Sue Coffee

The final round of 16 heats was won by Eden Putland in another hotly contested heat from Sophia Bernard with Laura Poncini and Cali McDonagh closely following. Putland’s high wave score of 8.75 was enough to get her the nod from the judges even though the other 3 girls had posted 2 scoring waves each that were higher than Putland’s second scoring wave. It just highlighted the importance today of wave selection and posting a high wave score.Eden PutlandSophia BernardLaura PonciniCali McDonagh