4 Ballies in Finals

In clean, though smaller, conditions at the pointbreak of Montanita in Ecuador, Andre Malherbe made it through to the Kahuna's final, which will be surfed today (live coverage at www.isawmsc.com starts at 2.40pm this afternoon).

Chris Knutsen contests the Grand Kahuna final, while Heather Clark faces a tough Women's final that includes Hawaiian Rochelle Ballard and Aussie Layne Beachley. Greg Emslie surfs against Sunny Garcia in the Masters final, among others. Wayne Monk, SA's hope in the Grand Masters came unstuck after surviving seven gruelling repercharge heats.

After Friday's surfing, Team SA leapfrogged Brazil into fourth place on the provisional standings behind current leaders and defending team champions Hawaii, 2011 holders USA and 2010 winners Australia. With just one day of competition still to be run, the quest for a gold, silver, bronze or copper medal and to have their country’s name engraved on the perpetual Eduardo Arena Team Trophy will go down to the wire.

On Friday, Emslie led South Africa’s fightback, winning his fifth straight heat to advance directly into Sunday’s Grand Final in the Masters (over 35) division. The former ASP World Tour stalwart and multiple SA Men’s and Masters champ continued his spectacular form in Ecuador by outpointing 2000 ASP World Champion, Sunny Garcia, fellow Hawaiian Kalani Robb and defending ISA Masters champion Magnum Martinez (Venezuela).

The East Londoner waited patiently for the best waves before unleashing an incredible array of power carves and progressive manoeuvres to post a heat total of 13.53 that his opponents could not match. Emslie is now guaranteed a medal and a substantial haul of points towards Team SA’s total.

Chris Knutsen (Durban) was equally selective in his Grand Kahunas (over 50) repercharge Round 3 heat, accumulating 11.10 points to advance to the last repercharge round and then the Grand Final along with Jose Tramontana (Peru) and eliminating surfers from Brazil and Hawaii from the event while doing so.

Heather Clark (Port Shepstone) advanced through two heats on Friday, doing just enough to win her Women’s Masters (over 35) repercharge Round 2 heat in the morning’s marginal low tide conditions that hampered the goofy-footers.

After the event was put on hold for a couple of hours to allow for the tide to come in, the swell increased in size and Clark, the gold medallist in this event in 2008 and 2010, smashed a confidence boosting 15.0 point heat total, the third highest of the Women’s division to date, to move into the last repercharge round where she came second to make it into the final.

Team SA’s gutsiest performance of Friday came from Wayne Monk (East London) who advanced through three cutthroat 15-minute Grand Masters (over 40) repercharge heats in the energy sapping 100 degree weather to move within two heats of a the Grand Final, but was knocked out in Round 7 yesterday.

Andre Malherbe (East London) then wrapped up Team SA’s comeback with a great display of high performance surfing that delivered scores of 6.77 and 7.67 to comfortably win his repercharge Round 6 heat and progress to the last eight in the Kahunas (over 45) before advancing yesterday to the finals today.

Team SA is excluded from the Aloha Cup as they did not attend the 2012 event.

Schedule of events for Day 8  – SA names in brackets

Grand Kahunas (over 50) Final (Chris Knutsen)
Masters (over 35) Final (Greg Emslie)
Women’s Masters (over 35) Final (Heather Clark)
Kahunas (over 45) Final (Andre Malherbe)

Each day’s action gets underway with the morning show webcast at 7:40am (2.40pm SA Time) followed by the first heats at 8am (3pm in SA). Live webcasts, daily videos, photos, results and contest news in both English and Spanish can be found at www.isawmsc.com.

The SA Masters Team has been provided with kit by Quiksilver and Surfing South Africa. Financial support has been received from Sport and Recreation South Africa, benefactors and through fund raising efforts arranged by Surfing South Africa and the team members themselves.