Battle Royale looms between
World Champs at Phillip Island

(Friday, January 27th, 2006): A three-way showdown is looming between Australia’s female world surfing champions at the Roxy Womens Surf Festival on Victoria’s Phillip Island with the youngest of the trio, 18 year-old Steph Gilmore (Kingscliff, NSW) throwing down the gauntlet on day four of competition held in excellent five-to-six foot (2m) waves at Surfers Point.
 
Gilmore, the current and two-time ISA World U/18 amateur champion, smashed her opponents in round four of the high rated 5-star WQS division, nearly doubling the scores of her nearest rivals with a display that would have most male surfers shaking in their wetsuits.
 
Her combined two wave heat total of 17.67 out of a possible 20 is the highest of the event thus far and she now joins ASP World Champion Chelsea Georgeson (Coolangatta, Qld) and newly crowned ASP pro junior champion Jessi-Miley Dyer (Bronte, NSW) by advancing to round five.
 
“I was having a lot of fun, there was some good clean right handers coming through which reminded me a bit of home and it’s always good to surf on your forehand,” said Gilmore who spends much of her year practising at the Gold Coast’s famous Snapper Rocks.
 
“I really want to qualify for the 2007 WCT (World Championship Tour) so it’s really important to win or at least make the final this week and I guess it’s inevitable we’re going to draw each other at some stage if we keep surfing the way we are.”
 
“If the waves are similar to today, I’ll be feeling pretty confident, but it could change so we’ll just have to wait and see if I can smash it up against them!”
 
In one of the day’s tighter round four match-ups, Georgeson failed to find her earlier event form but did enough to hold off a spirited challenge from former world no. 2 Serena Brooke (Coolangatta, Qld). Hawaiian teenager Leilani Gryde ran away with the heat leaving Georgeson and Brooke separated by less than one point on the final buzzer.
 
“Phew, that was a close one! I just didn’t seem to be able to get any good waves, I was lucky to get through that heat,” admitted Georgeson who is good friends with Brooke and has faced off against her many times over the years. “I was being fussy and I could see Leilani was hungry and working hard to get the inside when she needed to. That one lucky wave came through that walled up for her and she used it well.”
 
Nineteen year-old Miley-Dyer was the third of the green n’ gold champs to advance today but like Georgeson was also relegated to second, finishing behind former world-ranked competitor Amee Donohoe (Avoca, NSW) who has returned to the competitive arena following two seasons troubled by a knee injury.
 
“I’ve been watching all the girls and the standard’s really lifting,” said Miley-Dyer. “I had trouble finding the right waves, just trying to get into position but I got a good one right at the end that broke through to the inside so that was enough. If I draw Chelsea it’d be an honour. She’s the (ASP womens) world champ and has achieved everything I’m trying to achieve so I’d think of it as a privilege to surf against her.”
 
Round five is scheduled to commence tomorrow with excellent surf expected to continue. When competition resumes in the blue ribbon WQS division Miley-Dyer will face Hawaiian duo Gryde and Melanie Bartels, Georgeson has drawn Donohoe and Rebecca Woods (Copacabana, NSW), while Gilmore will need to overcome Rebecca Oakley (Noosa, Qld) and defending event champion Melanie Redman-Carr (Dunsborough, WA).
 
Heat four will see an all-international affair between world rated no. 4 Hawaiian Megan Abubo (Haw), Japan’s Kaori Mayaguchi and South African Heather Clark.
 
1993 World Champion Pauline Menczer (Byron Bay, NSW) was a surprise elimination today after the tour veteran was made an uncharacteristic error in the latter stages of her heat with Gilmore and Mayaguchi.
 
Sitting in third with a good scoring ride of 7.83 under her belt, Menczer required only an average wave to lift her into second, but dropped in on the Japanese surfer. The subsequent interference penalty saw Menczer remain in third on just 9.75 points and she was eliminated.
 
Menczer’s performance, however, was enough to overtake Samantha Cornish (Crescent Head, NSW) in the Evian Longest Tube Ride specialty award Yesterday Cornish scored a seamless disappearing act midway through her heat to put her in the running for the bonus $500 from Evian, but Menczer today managed to position herself inside a much larger wave and emerge triumphantly to hoots from the gallery watching on shore.
 
Following today’s round four heats in the WQS, surfing action continued with the quarter finals of the Pro Junior division, U/18s, U/16s and the semis of the Over 35 womens.
 
The Roxy women’s surf Festival is proudly supported by Evian, the Victorian Government “Play it Safe by the Water”, Bass Coast Shire and Phillip Island Nature Park.