Keramas Beach, Bali, Indonesia — Dean Bowen (Australia/NSW Sth Coast/Gerroa) today won the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Grade – 5 Rated Billabong Pro Junior Bali.
Held in magnificent surf over all four days at the now famous Keramas Rivermouth on the east coast of Bali, Bowen’s powerful backhand on-face surfing proved too strong for Teale Vanner (Australia/Kangaroo Island/SA) in a one sided final with Bowen’s top two rides of a 7 and a 7.5 and final total of 14.5 eclipsing Vanner on a two wave total of 7.5.
“It’s been such a good event with waves pumping in every heat and I really wanted to win here” said Bowen. “Everyone was getting amazing barrel rides throughout and I was always ready to take on a big barrel but that’s the beauty of this wave, if it’s not barrelling then generally it’s performance driven on-the-face moves and all my heats and particularly the final with the tide going out was more about big moves rather than tubes.”
Bowen’s win today saw him significantly jump from 10th up to 2nd place on the ASP Australasian 2009 Pro Junior ratings behind Owen Wright.
“It’s good to be up on the ratings but I’m not really concerned with ratings this year, more focused on winning events and simply surfing good” added 18 year old Bowen who earlier this year also won the World under 18 Surfing title.
Teale Vanner, who throughout this event had posted multiple 9 point plus outstanding barrel rides and earlier in the day scored a perfect ten point barrel ride in his quarter final seemed to be hunting for tubes in the final but was unable to find any while Bowen maintained his powerful and vertical top to bottom attack on the wave to take the win.
“I thought I’d find a few barrels in the final but it wasn’t to be” said Vanner. “It’s been a great event for me and I’m so relieved to do well here and score some fantastic waves as well.”
Vanner is a former Australian Junior Champion but his year-to-date on the ASP Australasian Pro Junior series had been a shocker and in all 6 events prior to this one, had not made one single heat!
“I was down on confidence and really didn’t know what I had to do to find a result but surfing here has really turned my year around and to score a perfect 10 and quite a few high 9 point rides feels great.”
Equal 3rd placed surfers today were Chris Bennetts (Australia/Gold Coast) who was eliminated in his semi-final by Dean Bowen in the final seconds and Dale Staples (South Africa/Cape St Francis) who had been a standout in deep tube rides throughout the event.
Indonesian surfers had surfed exceptionally throughout this event and their top placed surfer here was Raditya Rhondi (Bali) who made it through to the final 16 surfers and the final day but had to settle for equal 13th place overall.
Surfers at this year’s Billabong Pro Junior Bali almost unanimously agreed that this event was the best ever ASP Australasian Pro Junior they had competed in.
Keramas the wave, across all four days exposed it’s variety of super high performance qualities, from small and perfect on day one, to solid onshore but superbly carvable on day 2, then epic solid powerful barrelling slabs on day 3 to rifling perfect barrels on high performance midsized waves on the final day.
As the only ASP rated event for 2009 in Indonesia, it was an excellent event.
