The surf offseason doesn’t last all that long, especially compared to other major sports. The Championship Tours will be up and running again in about two months and the Qualifying Series sees its first significant action at the end of
The surf offseason doesn’t last all that long, especially compared to other major sports. The Championship Tours will be up and running again in about two months and the Qualifying Series sees its first significant action at the end of January with the Volcom Pipe Pro, followed by the Australian Open in early February.
But while the pros take their brief but welcome hiatus, the World Junior Championships enjoy the spotlight starting Monday. Portugal hosts this year’s competition with the best young men and women surfers in the world.
The favorite among the 18 women has to be Oahu’s Mahina Maeda. She’s not only the top seed, she’s by far the most accomplished and has already been invited to participate in a pair of CT contests. Maeda is in a similar position as Tatiana Weston-Webb was a few short years ago. She’s achieved just about everything a junior can, including winning this very title last season, and she’s right on the verge of qualifying for the world tour. It won’t be long before she’s consistently in heats with the world’s elite. For now, Maeda starts off this event against a pair from Peru, Melanie Giunta and Miluska Tello.
In the contest’s first heat, both Dax McGill and Brisa Hennessy will be competing. Like the world tour, the first round consists of non-elimination heats. So at least one of the Hawaii wahine will have to surf in round two, but all three — Maeda, McGill and Hennessy — should be considered major threats to make a deep run.
Other top seeds include Tia Blanco (California), Chelsea Tuach (Barbados) and Isabella Nichols (Australia).
For the men’s side, the field is much larger. There will be 48 hopefuls vying for the World Junior Championship, including Brazil’s David Silva, the top seed.
But Hawaii also features some of the favorites and most well-known young competitors, including Josh Moniz. In 2013, Moniz won the gold medal at the ISA World Junior Championships in Nicaragua. He was joined in gold with both Maeda and Weston-Webb that year as Team Hawaii took the silver medal.
Josh is at the very top of the draw and brother Seth headlines the very bottom in the first round’s final heat. There are a total of six Hawaii kane in the field, with Kalani David, Imai Devault, Elijah Gates and Benji Brand joining the Moniz boys.
Brand took second at last year’s Pipeline Pro Junior and his real claim to fame may be the GoPro barrel he filmed a couple years ago in Namibia. All have ISA experience, though Brand has competed for South Africa as he and his family reside in both countries.
Though the No. 3 seed, American Kanoa Igarashi is probably the favorite after the year he just concluded. The Huntington Beach product will join the 2016 world tour after finishing seventh on the 2015 Qualifying Series with two contest wins and six top-five finishes. He’ll be bridging the divide in a huge way, competing this week with juniors before taking on the world tour’s top seeds as a CT rookie in just a matter of months.
It hasn’t even been three weeks since Adriano de Souza won the world title, but it’s time to start enjoying what 2016 has in store as the young phenoms set the stage in the year’s opening act.
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David Simon can be reached at dsimon@thegardenisland.com.
