Four Kiwi girls kept their podium hopes alive at the ISA World Junior Surfing Championship being held in Peru today, all advancing through to the final 24 surfers in their respective divisions.
The team finished the day in 11th place overall out of the 57 countries in attendance.
Piha’s Leia Millar kicked off their performances in the Under 18 Girls Division with a second place finish to Japanese standout Mirai Ikeda. Millar held the lead until the after the final courtesy of posting a brilliant 7.17 point ride on her opening wave. An 8.0 on Ikeda’s last wave bumper her into the lead.
“It was super good to get that score at the start of my heat” explained Millar. “It set me up well and it also felt nice to finally get going at the event”.
Millar is looking forward to the Day 7 action where she expects conditions to remain similar. “It’s small but still super fun. Still lots of our team in the comp so tomorrow will be exciting to watch,” she added. She will surfer against opponents from Thailand, Portugal and Brazil in the next round.
Lola Groube followed in Millar’s footsteps surfing to an 11.0 point heat total in the first five minutes of her match up. That gave Groube the upper hand in the sleepy line up and she held on to the lead until the last wave by Australian Milla Coco Brown pushed her back to second.
Brisa Canina led the Under 16 Girls Division with a strong performance to move through to the final 24 surfers posting a 10.83 point heat total for a second place progression.
“The game plan was to get two waves that could create a solid total and put me in a good spot, then keep pushing from there,” said Canina of her well executed strategy.
“I made a couple mistakes with priority later in the heat which made me miss some good sets however, it’s all good and keen for the next heat with a similar strategy and obviously trying to push to get some higher scores’” she added.
Alani Morse found herself matched up with team mate Poppy Arkle today and as it would unfold it was only Morse that would press on to the next round, Arkle finishing in third place in the heat and 25th overall.
“Surfing in a heat with another teammate is pretty tricky, trying to find the balance of working together and also sticking to my normal competition strategy. We both wanted to try take over the peak at the start but try keep to the normal heat strategy,” said Morse.
Before their heat, the beach marshal gave the two Kiwis the wrong coloured rashies which Morse said was “pretty stressful”. “I was getting scored on the wrong waves and I was hoping I wasn’t going to get in any trouble even though it wasn’t my teammates or my fault, luckily I managed to keep myself fairly calm under all that stress.”
Earlier in the day, Alexis Owen bowed out of the event finishing 37th overall. Up against two Japanese team mates and surfing the second podium, Owen couldn’t find the right waves to unleash his full power turns and was left needing a 6.16 to advance.
Vitor Bauermann joins the girls on day 7 of action tomorrow when he takes on the third round of the Under 16 Boys Division with the aim of advancing deep into the draw. Bauermann has had two days off competition which came at the ideal time with his surfboards only showing up this morning, allowing him to change back to familiar equipment.
This year’s event is being held at Punta Roca, a consistent right and lefthand point break that has delivered good conditions to date. This year’s event has a record 424 participants from 57 countries taking part. New Zealand is chasing a result better than eleventh which they achieved in 2024.
The event takes place from the 7th – 15th December 2025 at Punta Roca, Peru. With a huge field of surfers, this year’s event only features a second chance format with all surfers from the repechage rounds joining back into Round 2 and single elimination from there on in.
Please see below for schedule of events for Day 7:
Podium 1
Heat 4 Leia 11:00am Peru (5:00am NZ)
Heat 5 Lola 11:20am Peru (5:20am NZ)
Heat 4 Brisa 1:00pm Peru (7:00am NZ)
Heat 6 Alani 1:40pm Peru (7:40am NZ)
Podium 2
Heat 7 Vitor 9:20am Peru (3:20am NZ)
You can watch the livestream of the event here:
https://isasurf.org/event/2025-isa-world-junior-surfing-championship/
About International Surfing Association (ISA)
The International Surfing Association (ISA) is recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the World Governing Authority for surfing, bodyboarding, SUP and surfriding. It was originally founded as the International Surfing Federation in 1964 and has been running world championships since 1964, and the Junior World Championships since 1980.
Further Information
For further information on the New Zealand Junior Surfing Team please contact Surfing New Zealand’s Ben Kennings on 021 2278732 or email benkennings@surfingnz.co.nz.
Imagery
High resolution action images of team members will be available to media free of charge upon request.
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