Jeffreys Bay the focus of the surfing world in July for WCT
The eyes of the surfing world will be firmly fixed on Jeffreys Bay during July this year as the world’s best surfers go to work on the world renowned waves during the R1.7 million (US $270 000) Billabong Pro, the sixth of 12 events on the 2005 Foster’s men’s ASP World Championship Tour (WCT).
Supertubes, the venue for the 21st edition of what has become Africa’s most prestigious and lucrative surfing tournament, is universally acknowledged as one of the planet’s top 10 high performance surf breaks.
Add the talent of the world’s 45 highest ranked surfers, including reigning three-time world surfing champion and defending J-Bay title holder Andy Irons (Hawaii), former six-time world champ Kelly Slater (Florida) and 2004 WCT runner-up and 1999 event winner Joel Parkinson (Aus).
Then stir in a mixture of the planet’s A list surf journalists, photographers and videographers, music concerts featuring world renowned free surfer and musician, Donovan Frankenreiter, along with a host SA’s top bands, and global satellite distribution of TV footage of each day’s action alongside streaming internet feeds featuring live scoring and footage supported by commentary in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
The result is hundreds of thousands of surf fans worldwide logging millions of page impressions on www.billabongpro.com around the clock between July 12 – 22 while viewing live and recorded action from the event site and following the fortunes of their favourite surfers.
“It’s great to have Donovan at the J-Bay event this year” says Billabong SA marketing manager, Sean Holmes. “The Billabong Pro has always been about living the life and having a huge party. We used to live for the Pro event and all the nightlife that invariably goes with it!” he commented, laughing.
“So now you have another reason to venture to Jeffreys Bay this July. Not only will you be able to see the best surfers in the world compete at Supertubes, but you will have a chance to rub shoulders with the world’s surfing elite in a relaxed musical environment,” added Holmes.
‘Diamond Donny’ will be performing two shows on the first weekend of the event, July 16 & 17, and will be supported by a plethora of yet to be named SA bands.
The Billabong Pro has an 11 day waiting period but only requires four full days of competition to determine a champion, giving the organisers the luxury of being able to choose the best possible conditions in which to run the contest, ensuring state of the art performances by the world’s best surfers.
Former event winners Mark Occhilupo (1984), Jake Paterson (2000 & 2001) and Mick Fanning (2002), all Australians, will be back to try and emulate their previous triumphs. Slater meanwhile will be doing his best to repeat his legendary feats of 2003 when he arrived late for the event and then produced one of the greatest sequences of sustained contest surfing ever witnessed to clinch a second Supertubes title to go with his inaugural 1997 victory.
The 45 WCT campaigners, including South Africans Greg Emslie and Travis Logie, will be joined in the 48 man format by two local wildcards who are determined by the Von Zipper Wildcard Trials staged on the first day the contest is called.
Von Zipper Sunglasses have made three slots in their event available to the South African surfing community, giving the country’s surfers a unique opportunity to test themselves against the world’s best competitors.
Source: Global Surf News
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