Australian Open of Surfing's huge week

Last week the Australian Open of Surfing was being held in Manly NSW. A fantastic event which saw some of the best surfers and skaters on the planet converge on the sunny shores of Manly beach.

The Australian Open of Surfing events kicked off on the 27th Feb in huge 8-10ft swell, which the young grom’s needed to negotiate during their heats over the early stages of the event. The swell tapered off to a moderate Easterly 2 to 3ft for much of the event window, and the wind from the North East kept the sky clear however it also put a certain lump on the water making conditions difficult for the heats later in the day.

As this was a QS6000 event we saw a lot of big names from the World Tour in both the women’s and the men’s competition. Round 3 of the men’s heats saw some major upsets by the local wildcards as well as the younger surfers on the QS tour, knocking out the likes of Michel Borez, Sebastian Ziets and Mitch Coleborn to name but a few. The road to the final however was no easy feat with over 140 surfers in the men’s division and all of them with an enormous amount of talent, but this did not deter Australian Dion Atkinson and the Italian Leonardo Fioravanti from making it through every heat un-scathed.

In the end Leonardo was very unlucky during the final held Sunday, as his strategy of waiting for the set waves while holding priority saw him unable to produce any score big enough to compete with the Dion’s amazing luck with inside runs which he scored handsomely on. Congratulations Dion on a very well surfed event and a deserved win.

The women had an equally entertaining battle with the Australian powerhouses of Laura Enever, Tyler Wright and Nikki Van Dijk all looking on form throughout the event. Through some fantastic surfing through the Quarters and Semi finals, Nikki Van Dijk found herself up against Malia Manuel in the finals.

They hit the water and the ocean turned on the waves for their 35 minute final heat. Nikki found herself posting some huge scores and continued to dominate the line up for most of the heat, however Malia didn’t go down without a fight as it came down to the wire. In the end Nikki Van Dijk took the victory and first place overall for the Aussie Bodies womens title.

Overall a very well organised event with enough swell in the water to make the surfing entertaining, perfect sunny days throughout the week and awesome entertainment over the finals weekend with Cloud Control and Angus ‘n Julia Stone headlining the MTV stage over finals weekend.

Big thanks to the team who ran the Australian Open of Surfing event and all volunteers who helped out during the week, we certainly look forward to next years event.

Below are a few photo’s from the week – Check here for the full gallery of Images