UTS and Melbourne Uni crowned champions of the surf

University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and The University of Melbourne (MELB) are going into Nationals Div 1 with momentum after being crowned champions at UniSport Nationals Surfing this week. With 10 surfers, UTS dominated the men’s competition whilst MELB’s team of six women got the job done in the female competition.

For the first time, the championships were held at Curl Curl Beach in Sydney’s Northern Beaches with the support of Surfing NSW. The competition saw approximately 80 of Australia’s best student-surfers representing 13 different universities take to Curl Curl’s tough conditions over the three-day event.

On day one, the first round of men’s shortboard and bodyboard heats took place whilst two rounds of women’s shortboard occurred. Defending champions Southern Cross University (SCU) and Manly locals International College of Management Sydney (ICMS) both started strongly with all their surfers progressing through the early rounds.

Day two started with the first round of longboard heats in both men’s and women’s divisions, with round two and the quarter finals of the men’s bodyboard, shortboard and longboard competitions seeing through the rest of the day.

The competition wrapped up on Thursday with semi-finals and finals of all individual competitions followed by the tag-team challenge. This saw teams of 3-5 surfers competing in a 50-minute heat and posting combined scores in shortboard, longboard and bodyboard.

UniSport Australia would like to congratulate the following students on being crowned champions in their respective disciplines:

Shortboard

Men: Riley Cadman, ICMS

Women: Sophia Chapman, The University of Notre Dame Australia (NDA)

Longboard

Men: Bryce Watson, SCU

Women: Chelsea Green, Charles Sturt University (CSU)

Bodyboard

Men: Joseph Morton, UTS

Women: Ella Swann, MELB

Team’s Challenge: SCU

To find out how your university faired in the point score, head to unisport.com.au/surfing-div1.

The UniSport Nationals continues with Nationals Orienteering taking place in Wagga Wagga on 28 September and the flagship Nationals Div 1 containing 29 sports kicking off on the Gold Coast from 28 September to 3 October.