Roxy Jam 2009 is on
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Annual celebration of women's surf, music and art begins in Biarritz, France.
As part of the annual Roxy Jam, round one of the fourth ASP Women's World Longboard Championships got underway on the beautiful Côte des Basques beach in Biarritz.
After last year's contest was dampened by rain, 2009 conditions were great with warm temperatures, clear skies and a mellow three to four foot of clean swell.
Despite conditions making the sixteen heats run smoothly there were surprises with current World Champion Joy Monahan of Oahu, Hawaii being knocked out in Heat 8 by US surfer Summer Romero.
Gold Coast local and 2008 champion Chelsea Williams won the highest score of the day, with a 16.50 (out of 20) score for her heat against Cori Schumacher. Despite a lack of waves she overcome pre-competition fears to nose-ride a long right-hander and notch up 8.75 (out of 10) points to take the lead.
As sets came in irregularly, patience was a valuable asset and the day's final round between Cornwall's Candice O'Donnell and Yuko Shimajiri was the perfect example of this. As Candice charged every wave possible, Yuko floated out back, waiting with zen-like patience for the perfect waves - and a winning final score.
Most of the big names made it through as expected, including Roxy pros Kassia Meador (who showed off her famous cross step), 2007 champion Jennifer Smith and Kelia Moniz.
With the blue Pyrenees mountains of the French-Spanish border shimmering behind the ocean mist on the distant left horizon and the turrets of Biarritz' charming old town to the right, it's an incredibly breathtaking setting for some truly stylish surfing.
The surf has picked up to three to four foot today and round two is happening now with the results being posted live online. It promises to be another day of impressive longboard riding, followed by a live gig from Santigold.
HUCK will be here for the whole event so come back tomorrow for more from Day 3.
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Roxy Jam 2009 is on (text) by Gemma Freeman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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