ISA World Masters Surfing Championships
Santa Catalina, Panama
August 27 to September 5, 2010

Andre Malherbe stays in contention at ISA World Masters Surfing Championships in Panama

Andre Malherbe was the only South African surfer to compete on Day 4 of the ISA World Masters Surfing Championships in Panama on Wednesday as the organisers ran four rounds of repecharge heats that whittled down the field of surfers aged 35 or older from 107 to just 70.

The East Londoner took to the solid 2 to 2.5 metre waves with gusto and ran out a convincing winner in his Grand Masters repecharge Round 2 heat, earning scores of 6.0 and 6.33 (both out of 10) for a total of 12.33 that left his opponents from Venezuela, Italy and New Zealand floundering in his spray.

Malherbe, a copper medalist in the last ISA Masters event in Peru in 2008, is now through to repecharge Round 3 and still four heats away from a place in the Grand Final of the division.

Although only so-called ‘losers’ heats were run, the highest scores of the entire event were posted when Costa Rican Craig Scheiber was awarded 17.17 out of 20 (9.17 + 8.00) in his Grand Masters heat. And the man who is competing in two divisions at the event didn't stop there, racking up 15.50 points when he contested his Kahunas heat.

Meanwhile in the Masters division, former ASP World Tour No. 3, Victor Ribas from Brazil, finally found his rhythm and was the best surfer of his age group, scoring 16.10 (8.67 + 7.43).

Team South Africa remains on track to retain the ISA World Team Champions title they have won at the previous two editions of the event and are leading the ratings along with Australia, Peru and Brazil who are the only nations with all their surfers still in contention.

Today’s action at Santa Catalina in Panama will get underway at 7:00am (@pm in South Africa) with the following schedule:

 ISA World Masters Surfing Championships

Schedule for Thursday 2 September (South Africans in Brackets)

Masters Qualify 3                             (Wayne Monk & Andrew Banks)
Kahunas Qualify 3                          (David Malherbe & Marc Wright)
Grand Masters Qualify 3                 (Robert Moore-Boyle)
Masters Repecharge 3
Kahunas Repecharge 3
Grand Masters Repecharge 3       (Andre Malherbe)
Women’s Masters Repecharge 2
Grand Kahunas Repecharge 2

All the action from the event, including live webcasts, daily videos, photos, results and contest news in both English and Spanish can be found at www.panamaisaworldmasters.com.

Event updates are also available through the ISA Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

The SA Masters Team preparations and attendance at the 2010 ISA World Masters Championships is made possible thanks to a R150 000 grant from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF).