Welsh European Junior Surfing championships, France

This from Andy Williams (WCSC) who recently went over to France help out and watch his daughter compete:

Just got back from a week at the European Junior Surfing championships with the Welsh junior team, I went over as van driver and bag man, any excuse for a trip eh! 

I’ve no connection with the WSF other than my daughter competing and I’ve known a few of the people involved for years (as do most of us who live and surf in Wales) so this post is totally my own views and nothing to do with the WSF so flame me if you feel the need. 

I've had a few people asking me how the team performed and their final placing, so I had to comment. 

I was gutted when the team finished 10th, the final table just does not show how well the team actually did!

The way the Euro’s is scored penalises teams who don’t have a full team. 

If we had fielded two more bodyboarders (one in U 16,’s one in U18’s) and even if they had finished last in their events, we would have finished 6th. 

Pretty impressive for a country of our size and a very young team, most of whom will be around for a couple more Euro Juniors. 

Take out the bodyboard results totally and we would have finished 5th, right up there with the big four of France, Spain, Portugal and England!

We had the highest placed British surfer (Well done Connor Griffiths - 2nd in the longboard), a 6th place in the Under 16 boys shortboard,(Rhys Barfield, who snapped his favourite board just before his heat started) and a 9th in the U 18’s (Rhys Poulton). 

The other groms backed this up with a bunch of mid field placings. Please don’t take this as a rant about team selection or whatever. 

My only reason for posting this is so that people do realise we do have Welsh kids who are prepared to work hard, take a few beatings in French beachbreaks and can actually surf pretty well. 

I’m bloody proud of the way the kids surfed and behaved, if you are Welsh you should be too! 

If you see one of the team pat them on the back and let them have a wave. 

You can do the same for any of the support staff as well because we had to put up with a van full of pissy wetsuits that even frightened the French customs officials - or it may have been Herbie’s attempt at speaking French!" 

Sounds like an awesome performance from all concerned and just think - if we'd just have had two more bodyboarders in the squad - we would have come 5th in Europe! 

Which is insane considering what a small country we are with intermittent surf! But clearly shows just how good the standard of surfing is now in Wales :)