Spain writes History in the Eurosurf Junior with maiden title in Santa Cruz.
Spain is the new European Junior Champion, with France, Portugal and England completing the podium in that order.
It was the culmination of an incredible week of surfing that peaked today with amazing finals and, again, outstanding performances from some of the best young surfers in Europe and the World.
The new European champions, by division are:
Longboard u18 – Arthur Randall (Eng)
Longboard u18 girls – Daniela Sevillano (Spa)
Surf u16 girls – Annette Etxabarri (Spa)
Surf u16 – Lukas Skinner (Eng)
Surf u18 girls – Alys Barton (Eng)
Surf u18 boys – Kai Odriozola (Spa)
The triumph of Spain was decided today with three individual gold, while France failed to deliver on the advantage it brought into the final day, unable to clinch any first place although it had surfers in every division.
Meanwhile, England exploded in this last day of the event, crowning three European champions, with Lukas Skinner performing some of the most electrifying displays of surfing we’ve seen during this event, and Arthur Randall and Alys Barton putting the cherry on top for the English. Lola Bleakley brought home silver, surprised by Daniela Sevillano’s last wave.
Spain’s Sporting Vice President Lourenço Chaves de Almeida commented on the first ever victory of the national team on a Eurosurf Junior:
“It’s the first Junior European Championship we won. We were already European champions in 2005, in the Canary Islands, but never with the junior team. This was the title we ambitioned the most because it really shows the work of the Spanish federation, national and regional governments, clubs, and schools. We already knew this was going to be decided on the last day. We had to do everything right and France had to do everything wrong. Fortunately, everything fell into place, and we leave here with an historical triumph. And we see that teams like the German, Dutch, English are growing and showing excellent work. That is good for the European surfing.”
A final word for the president of the European Surfing Federation, Jean Luc Arassus, who congratulated the organization for the success of this event:
“It was a great success! It is a very important competition for us, and it is so good to see the best young European surfers compete in safety after the difficult times we endured, in a beautiful country like Portugal, and a beautiful place like Santa Cruz, with such consistent waves. We are very grateful to the Portuguese Federation and the Portuguese people for this. Portugal is a big country in surfing, and we look forward for more events like this in the future!”
Photo: Tiago Segurado / Oceanspirit