The Billabong Grom Series is a summertime institution. The three contests are held at The Mount, Whangamata and the finale at Piha; the series has been running for a staggering 15 years with the constant support from Oceanbridge.
What's Oceanbridge? Well it's a pretty cool and sad story. Oceanbridge is a freight forwarding company owned by the Speedy family, Ocean Bridge has long been associated with Billabong as their Freight Forwarder. But that's not why Oceanbridge support the events; teenaged Fletcher Speedy tragically lost his life at Raglan in 1997. The Speedy family celebrate Fletcher and his love of surfing with their ongoing patronage.
The Piha Finale of the tri-series hosted one of the biggest draws in years, 52 entrants in the 14U Boys. It forced the contest organisers into running double arenas for the first morning.
And what a first morning it was! Gale force winds and the first real rain in 49 days... the fortnight before; consistent pumping summer conditions, the week after, consistent pumping summer conditions. You could not have picked a worse weekend for beach dwelling! But the show must go on.
The 14U lads in the rain
Jack Lee undeterred by the thunder
It's a tough gig for a photog, you feel the pressure of delivering decent images, but is it worth ruining 20K of gear. Of course Piha being my home and the beach I shoot at the most, the little tricks are all known, the places to set up out of the wind and rain, dodge the water drops, risk high velocity falling rocks, seems like a fair trade off.
Local Mathias Thompson ripping during the finals
Sunday was a different story, sunshine, but still howling onshore. The contest machine rolls on through another 8 hours of 15minute heats.
Always watching, always judging
Former Senior National Champion Matt Groube's daughter Chloe giving the Bar a nudge
Local Liv Brown-Hysom speed checking into the Cove
Alani Morse on a tear in the Cove
The young woman to beat; Christchurch's Ava Henderson
Son of multiple National Champion Chris Malone, Navryn
Raglan's Kora Cooper dropping the landing gear on a heaving Piha section
Local lass Leia Millar was ripping
Mountie Jack Hinton
As local as you can get, Billza Byers
The Billabong Grom Series overall Champs with Aussie surfing stars Ryan Callahan and Occy bookending them
The Bay of Plenty took three series titles via Luis Southerwood (Whaka) in the Under 18 Boys Division, Georgia Wederell (Mnt) in the Under 18 Girls Division and Tao Mouldey (Mnt) in the Under 14 Girls Division. Natasha Gouldsbury took a title for Taranaki in the Under 16 Girls Division as did Jayden Willoughby for Raglan in the Under 16 Boys Division. Piha’s Leia Millar and Pauanui’s Chloe Groube shared the title for the Under 14 Girls Division.
For the full wrap up of the comp- check out SNZ HERE
Me? Well I love documenting the Grom Series, you get to see who is coming through, you end up with images that may well have timeless appeal... like this one of our own legend Paige Hareb 2007-ish on the Bar on her way to winning the U18 Girls Billabong Groms Piha.
This post is for you Fletch.
From The Galleries
Selling out or buying in? I say buying in, the now classic Piha Bar Barrel shot is the official signature image of the 2020 Piha Pro... you are going to see it all over the show, and yes the copyright release was very fair :)
Check out the image better HERE