Billabong MSF Pro

Jeffreys Bay to host South Africa's first Million Rand surfing event [poster]

The Billabong MSF Pro will become the first South African surfing event to offer more than R1 million in prize-money when it is staged at Jeffrey's Bay between June 29 and July 9 this year.

Sanctioned by the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), the country's premier surf contest forms part of the 13 event World Championship Tour (WCT) that crowns the annual men's and women's world surfing champions and has US $168 000 (approximately R1 175 000) at stake.

The WCT rating guarantees the attendance of the world's top 44 men and top 15 women, all of whom revel in riding the legendary waves at Supertubes, universally acknowledged as the best high performance point break on the planet.

The field will include reigning world champions Mark Occhilupo and Layne Beachley, both Australians, current men's ratings leader Sunny Garcia (Haw), the sensational Taj Burrow and last year's runner-up Ross Williams (Haw).

Four wildcards have been named to join the top 44 in making up the 48 man field who are competing for the US $15 000 (approximately R105 000) first place prize-money. They are defending champion Joel Parkinson, the Australian teenager who sensationally outclassed the world's best by surfing his way to victory in his first visit to Jeffreys Bay last year, ASP nomination Keith Malloy from California, red hot Australian junior Mick Fanning who is the Mitchell Surfing Foundation's (MSF) choice and Sean Holmes from Wilderness who has been allocated Billabong South Africa's wildcard.

Holmes recently won his second SA open surfing title in Cape Town, where he is studying at UCT, and had an outstanding tournament at Jeffrey's Bay in 1999, scoring the highest heat total of the first day and beating both world number two Mick Campbell and eventual world champion Mark Occhilupo on his way to a highly creditable ninth place finish.

Holmes will be joined by compatriots Greg Emslie (EL) and Paul Canning (Durban), both of whom qualified for the 2000 WCT, giving South Africa its strongest representation ever at this level of competition.

In another ground breaker for this year's event, rookie WCT campaigner Heather Clark from Port Shepstone becomes the first South African to compete in the women's event. Clark, whose powerful backhand surfing has seen her grab two third places finishes in the three WCT women's events staged this year, is currently rated eighth in the world and has an outstanding chance of clinching her first WCT title at Jeffrey's Bay.

The Billabong MSF Pro has an 11 day waiting period for just 5 full days of competition, enabling the organisers to run the contest in the kind of epic conditions that Supertubes is famous for.

• Once again Billabong's International Webcast Team will be streaming all the live action across the Internet on www.billabongpro.com.

• So be sure not to miss the live coverage of the world's best, men's and women's surfers on www.billabongpro.com.