SURFING
The World Surf League has returned to Avoca Beach for this year’s Central Coast Pro QS3,000, featuring a suite of local contenders from wildcard entries to Championship Tourists.
The contest kicked off Monday, March 14, beginning with a double win for the Molly Picklum team – both for the Championship Tour surfer herself and her coach from Avoca, Glen Hall.
Shelly Beach’s Picklum spent her early surf development years at Avoca and showed off her familiarity with the beach in her opening round win, landing the three best waves of the heat.
“It’s so great to be back home here at Avoca and surf in some really fun waves at my local break,” Picklum said.
“Anytime we can get a left hand rip bowl for an event is absolutely awesome as I love surfing my backhand and where better than in a lineup that I’ve spent so much time.”
With a brief calendar gap in the Championship Tour, wherein Picklum currently sits in 11th place, the Central Coast prodigy will continue to perform throughout the week with the aim of maintaining her competitive form, as well as reclaiming her title from last year’s Pro at Avoca.
“Although you can qualify for the (Championship) Tour and whatnot, for me, I’ve just got to practice as much as I can and that’s why coming down here to the Avoca QS is so important,” Picklum said.
“Every heat I can surf, it just means I can learn and get better and then use those things that I learn on the big stage against the bigger girls.”
In the Men’s, Glen ‘Micro’ Hall showed that an old maestro can perform alongside the young guns, advancing into the next round after placing second in his opening heat, knocking out North Shelly Boardriders junior, Hugh Vaughan in the process.
The young grom’s older brother, Joel currently leads the Australia/Oceania Qualifying Series, although will likely fall in the rankings after failing to advance from his Round 2 heat on Tuesday, March 15.
Faced against Hinata Aizawa and Marlon Harrison, Vaughan was unable to find any worth in the small wave conditions and will look to future events for his chance to keep his ranking high.
“It’s really important, especially throughout the bigger contests like the (QS)3000 and 5000’s,” reflected Joel after first breaking into the ranking’s lead by winning the Great Lakes Pro on February 25.
“I just want to try to surf as well as I can through those and hopefully stay in the top ten and qualify for the Challenger Series.”
Local wildcard entry from Avoca, Tahlia Hurst gave her best in the opening round although fell behind a top performance from Sophie McCulloch and in a close contest for second place against Jesse Starling.
“It was really fun (and) a really good experience for me,” said Hurst with a big smile.
“I’m just trying to get all the experience I can out here and it’s such a good experience to get to surf against those good girls out there.”
The Central Coast Pro is set to continue throughout the week.
Haakon Barry