July 26TH Santa Cruz
And Spain achieves its goal of becoming two times Junior European Champion in a row, beating France by a whisker (35 points), leaving host nation Portugal in third and Italy, that rose above the rest in the final’s day, with two European champions, in fourth, and England came fifth.
The morning started with the repechages finals, which were especially good for Portugal, that qualified Maria Salgado and Erica Máximo at the under 18 girls surfing final. Other surfers qualifying for the finals were Spain’s Sol Borelli and France’s Naia Monte (under 16 girls), Matias Canhoto (Portugal) and Hans Odriozola (Spain) at the under 18 boys, Arthur Randell (England) and Raony Portillo (France) at the Longboard under 18 boys, Lola Bleakley (England) and Mia Ramakers (Belgium) at the Longboard under 18 girls division and finally Jaime Veselko (Portugal) and Esteban Coucoulis (France) in the under 16 boys.
Then the big finals, and the champions: Tya Zebrowsky took gold for France on the under 16 girls, Italian Cami Ginger, 12, surfed a final for the ages in the under 18 longboard, with an incredible total score of 18.17 (9,87 and 8.30), Portugal’s Francisco Freitas clinched the gold in a very competitive under 18 Longboard final, Dylan Donegan surfed incredibly and added the European under 16 title to the ISA under 16 World title, beating English phenom Lukas Skinner, in a repeat of the world championship final, Annette Etxabarri took revenge on Tya Zebrowski and won for Spain over France on the girl’s under 18 and, Italy’s own Leonardo Apreda beat everyone for the under 18 boys title.
In the end, one of Spain’s coaches, Ruben Lopez, celebrated the win: “It’s an historical moment. To win this Eurosurf Junior face to face with such powerful teams like Portugal, France, England, Italy, Netherlands…we must be happy and proud. Years ago, we had logistical problems and such and nowadays we were able to solve them all. Surfing is growing in Spain, we have several Olympics, a world championship title with Dylan [Donegan] and the future is bright.”
Final Ranking:
1- Spain 8936 pts
2- France 8901
3- Portugal 8029
4- Italy 7372
5- England 7163
6- Netherlands 6038
7- Israel 5629
8- Germany 5590
9- Ireland 5318
10- Wales 5215
11- Scotland 4785
12- Channel Islands 4670
13- Belgium 4333
14- Poland 3535
15- Denmark 3438
16- Czech Republic 2133
17- Sweden 1713
All pictures by Tiago Segurado for Ocean Spirit/ESF.
