NSW Open Surfmasters Titles

Locals revel at the NSW Open Surfmasters Titles

Surfing NSW
Werri Beach and Bombo, NSW
4 July 2009

Werri Beach and Bombo, NSW – Five prestigious NSW Open Surfmasters Titles were awarded today in excellent conditions on the NSW South Coast, as local competitors revelled.

Greeted with a marked increase in swell overnight, the usual crew of weather beaten, salt encrusted, sand blasted, elder statesmen and women were on hand today after a lay-day was called yesterday due to poor conditions.

With the best 200 age surfers congregating at two contest locations (Werri Beach and Bombo), to make up for lost time yesterday, five champions were decided and precious places at the Country Energy Australian Surf Festival on the line.

While their competitive still burns as strong as ever, what transpired was some high-quality surfing.

Local stalwart and Illawarra surfing luminary Terry Richardson (East Corrimal, NSW) was on-fire, returning back to the dais, after a seven year hiatus, claiming the over 50 Men’s division.

Having tasted success as the ISA World Masters Champion in 1997 and 2003 after a successful competitive career on the ASP World Tour during the eighties, Richardson wound back the clock today with an emphatic victory.

read the full story at surfersvillage

Former ASP World Tour campaigner Daniel Ross (Aus) has assumed the current ASP WQS ratings lead, after advancing into the quarterfinals of the ASP WQS 6-Star Mr Price Pro Ballito today.

Ross, the highest rated surfer in this year’s event, defeated local standout and South African Open Men’s Champion Gavin Roberts (Scottburgh) during the Men’s Round of 16 in the small 0.5 meter waves on offer Surfers in Ballito today.

“I’ve been doing the ‘QS for a while and to be only half way through the year and already sitting on over 12,000 points is a good feeling,” said Ross. “I’ve been putting in a lot of work and just kept doing what I know and it works well. I’m surfing without a sponsor at the moment but still, it’s all come together this year.”

As priority and wave selection became critical in the first of the man-on-man heats, the powerful Australian unleashed some fast and loose surfing to edge out Roberts with a 13.20 heat total to the South African’s 12.50 (both out of 20.00).

read the full story at surfingaustralia

Yallingup, Western Australia — Western Australian based surf accessory company Creatures of Leisure, are pleased to announce a resolution of the recently reported dispute between Taj’s management company, and themselves. Taj will continue to ride for Creatures of Leisure until at least 2010 which marks the expiry date of the most recent 4 year agreement between the two parties.

Creatures of Leisure has sponsored Taj for the past 16 years which encompasses his entire professional career, partnering with him since he was 14. In May 2009 Taj’s management company, TB Endorsements, issued a statement that it would no longer perform its sponsorship obligations for the final 10 month period of the existing sponsorship agreement with Creatures of Leisure.

“It appears that there was pressure being brought to bear on Taj and his management by a third party”, a Creatures spokesperson stated. “We would have been willing to work with Taj’s management if possible to facilitate an early release, however there were no surfers of a similar caliber available, the Creatures International catalogue had already been distributed and there were tens of thousands of Taj’s signature grips in stock, in production and on the water to over 20 distributors around the world – it was simply not commercially possible to release Taj from his contractual obligations at such short notice.”

“The decision to hold Taj’s management company to the contract, which is now legally binding, was necessary for reasons we believe they were unaware of.” “It was unfortunate the way in which the issue was initially reported in the media, suggesting that Creatures was suing Taj directly for not having a logo or similar on his board – that was totally incorrect.”

www.creatures.com.au