Bianca Buitendag claims the ASP 1-Star Bréti Girls Pro Junior title – Surfing News
South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag took out the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 1-Star Bréti Girls Pro Junior by putting on a superb performance in the Final that went down at Les Dunes in Brétignolles-sur-Mer, France, on Tuesday, April 17.
The stormy two-to-three foot waves at the beach-break offered a tough challenge to the young female surfers as they battled it out for top honours.
While majority of the local and international talent failed to cope with the demanding waves, Buitendag did exceptionally well to adjust to the conditions and managed to put on a consistent performance to remain a standout in all the heats that she surfed
in.
The 18-year-old South African stepped up to best the cold water and stormy conditions since the very first round and by the time she moved into the Final, there were very few people at the beach who doubted her as the strongest contender for the event title.
Pitted against an experienced French trio, namely Joanne Defay, Maud Le Car and Josephine Costes in the Final, Buitendag came up with a superb performance to completely steal the show.
As the battle got underway, the South African surfer braced herself to pounce on a scoring opportunity right away. Her determination and proactive approach to the heat allowed her to move into position to catch a couple of juicy waves. Unloading a series
of exquisite manoeuvres on both the rides, she reached a heat-total of 15.73 points, which held up until the end to clinch the win.
“To be honest this is probably some of the worst conditions I’ve surfed in my life this morning when we got here.” Buitendag said. “With the high tide it picked up a little bit and there were a couple of fun ones you could do one or two turns on. It’s a
typical beach-break, you never really know where to sit and you just hope to catch it when something comes your way.”
Defay finished right behind Buitendag in runner-up place after scoring a two-wave total of 10.66 points. Le Car and Costes failed to make much of an impact during the Final, finishing with a heat-total of 8.40 and 5.67 points respectively to round out the
bottom-two positions.
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