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Summer Romero crashes out Longboard Championship
by George Mojo
06/07/2006:// The number one seed American Summer Romero has crashed out of the Roxy ASP Women's World Longboard Championship at Côte des Basques, in Biarritz.
Romero, from San Diego, finished third in her heat, losing to fellow Americans Bianca Valenti and Kassia Meador in their round four match-up in weak two foot surf
Romero posted an excellent 8.5 point score early and sat with the lead for most of the heat, but was pushed to third when both Meador and Valenti bettered their best wave scores with just two minutes remaining. She finished just three-tenths of a point behind Meador.
“I’m not too disappointed, I just didn’t catch another wave,” said 24-year-old Romero, 24. “The surf was small, it was high tide and it was so hard to get into them. If I would have got another wave it would have been a whole different story, but that’s just the way contests go.”
Being the inaugural Roxy ASP WWLC, almost everyone of any significance in women’s longboarding is in France this week.
“This contest is pretty stacked,” said Romero. “You’ve got people from all over the world here so there’s definitely going to be hard heats. Some of the earlier heats were a lot easier; I would have to say ours was the hardest heat out there today.”
Romero said that the heat winner, Bianca Valenti, who posted the highest wave score of the event so far (a 9.5), has been largely absent from the longboard scene in recent years.
“Bianca was one of the top longboarders as a grom (young surfer) but then she stopped because she went to school and started shortboarding.,” said Romero . “It’s awesome to see her back on the longboard scene killing it. She’s always been an amazing surfer so it’s good to see her competing again.”
Valenti, a student at the University of California Santa Barbara, was pleased with the result, but not surprised.
“I’ve beaten them before so I know I have it in me to get high scores. They have to get high scores to beat me,” Valenti said. “This is cool because I go to school and most of these girls don’t, so I’m always sitting in class going, ‘arghhh!’ It feels good to win heats when they get to travel all of the time.”
Kassia Meador, 24, who came second in the four-woman heat, which also featured Helene Chabeaud of France, was relieved to have survived the encounter.
“That was a really tough heat. Those two girls, I could be in a final with both of them, so I’m just really lucky to have advanced. I’m still shaking,” Meador said. “I was in between second and third for most of the heat and knew I needed a good score so I caught a little one and tried to make the best of it. It could have gone either way so I’m stoked.”
Other heat winners included USA’s Jennifer Smith, Ashley Lloyd, Mary Osborne, Julie Whitegon, Schuyler McFerran, Kaitlan Maguire and Kelly Nicely; Hawaii’s Crystal Dzigas and Joy Magelssen; Reunion Islander Coline Menard and South African Simone Robb.
Robb, who lost her board in transit and only just recovered it this morning after road-tripping to Spain to pick it up, was thrilled.
“The prize-money I’ve won so far will already pay for half of my air ticket here,” Robb said. “Longboarding doesn’t exist in South Africa – there are no sponsors, no discounts on boards, no media coverage, nothing. Making it this far means I can pay back some of the money I borrowed to get here and advancing further might mean breaking even, who knows, maybe even putting a little in my pocket.”
Robb hopes more events like the Roxy ASP WWLC will help put longboarding on the map in South Africa and make it a more viable career path.
Though no Australian surfers won their round three, several finished in second place and advanced to round four. They were Belinda Baggs, Gretchen Jorgensen, Selby Riddle, Chelsea Williams and Lisa Nicholson.
Only 24 surfers remain in contention for the first ever ASP Women’s Longboard World title.
The dates have been set for the end-of-season British Longboard Union Series Final in Cornwall
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Six major retailers have agreed to implement new labelling on cotton bud packaging following persuasive action by SAS and MCS
Newquay surfer Russell Winter narrowly missed out on a place in the last 80 of the Sooruz Lacanau Pro, in France
Britain's Russell Winter bounced back from a disappointing first round exit at the recent Rip Curl Boardmasters in Newquay to make it through to round two of the Sooruz Lacanau Pro in France
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