Surf Athletes
We all like to think we are surfers who “could have” made it. These surf athletes actually are making it. From underground heroes to rising groms – this is where we lay bare the best talent in the country.
Both of New Zealand’s Olympic surfers, Billy Stairmand and Ella Williams, survived Day 1 of competition at Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach, Tokyo, today, advancing to the Round of 16. Raglan’s Billy Stairmand was first up in a morning clash that saw him battling in average 1-2 foot waves at Tsurigasaki against......
Team New Zealand hits the ISA World Games with just two athletes: Paige Hareb and Saffi Vette. In this visual diary, Saffi Vette takes us behind the scenes as Team New Zealand hunts down an Olympic qualification spot. What they didn’t expect was countless swabs up the nose or a......
It’s fair to say Benji Lowen’s trajectory in surfing has been outstanding. He’s on a performance surge right now, punching above his weight in New Zealand and he now has Australia in his sights. Despite only being 11 years old, he’s one of the hungriest competitors we’ve seen in the......
New Zealand Surf Journal releases Episode 1 of its Good Salt podcast series with an in-depth chat with Paige Hareb and Saffi Vette as they endure MIQ in Auckland. Fresh back from the ISA World Surfing Games in El Salvador we discuss the Olympic dream, Tokyo 2020’s waves, and we......
The World Surf League announces the updated calendar for the remainder of the 2021 Championship Tour leading into the Rip Curl WSL Finals in September. The Oi Rio Pro is cancelled, Mexico is in. The third leg of the Tour includes a stop in Mexico for the first time in......
Leia Millar is not your typical 14-year-old surfer. The North Piha local has been brought up on a steady diet of gymnastics, which has shaped her into an extraordinarily promising young athlete. A career in surfing is now well and truly in her sights … she’s already taking national titles.......
Paige Hareb suffers medical event while celebrating her 31st birthday in El Salvador on Sunday and requires hospital treatment. “I went out to celebrate my El Salvadorian birthday last night, but things took a turn for the worst,” she shared on Instagram. Paige has spent her birthday surfing with Saffi......
It was an agonising conclusion to the 2021 ISA World Surfing Games for Paige Hareb when the Taranaki star missed Olympic qualification by the narrowest of margins in El Salvador. New Zealand’s hopes of a third surfer at this year’s Olympics rested on Paige Hareb in the early hours of......
A huge turn that saw Paige Hareb free fall out of the lip on a huge left at La Bocana, El Salvador, was enough to catapult her into the Final 8 in the main group at the ISA World Surfing Games. She is now just one heat shy of Olympic......
Nineteen-year-old Gisborne surf star, Saffi Vette, has ended her run to the Tokyo Olympics this morning, falling in solid, challenging conditions in El Salvador. Surfing in the 4th heat of Repechage 5, Saffi and fellow WQS campaigner Ellie Turner, from Great Britain, were bettered by Carolina Mendes, of Portugal, and......