By Greg Hutson
Not even the chill of the beasterly easterly could erase the smile from an ecstatic Sofia Mulanovich after she won the women's final of the Mr Price Pro at Durban's North Beach on Saturday.
Sporting a Colgate smile, the tiny 1.47m, 19-year-old surfer from Peru struggled to lift the large wooden winner's trophy, but did in the end, much to the delight of the spectators and her fellow competitors, who seemed every bit as stoked as she was.
Mulanovich first visited Durban at the tender age of 13 to compete in the Gunston 500, returned for the ISA World Surfing Games last month, and was ecstatic about making the first final of any event that she has surfed in.
However, she used the experience that she had gained as a wildcard entrant into World Championship Tour (WCT) events in Australia and Fiji earlier this year to beat defending champion Jacqueline Silva of Brazil into second place and staggered off after the prize-giving, struggling to carry the trophy, her board, and the $10 000 (R35 000) cheque off the stage.
In addition, she also collected 1 500 World Qualifying Series championship points - enough to propel her to the top of the WQS rankings.
Silva's victory last year was enough to earn her the WQS crown selection into the WCT, and Mulanovich's victory could be the start of bigger things for her.
Seasoned campaigner Trudy Todd of Australia and Hawaii's Melanie Bartels finished the women's final of the Mr Price Pro in third and fourth place respectively after struggling to find the waves they needed.
"I'm so happy right now," said an elated Mulanovich who was drenched in champagne by Todd after the final. "It's like a dream come true."
Mulanovich took her chances in the final early on and surfed as though her life depended upon it in the choppy onshore conditions with a superb score of 9.70 out of a possible 10. However, a series of good combination rides from both Silva and Todd, who is returning to competitive surfing after an eight-month injury-enforced layoff, saw Mulanovich surrender the lead and drop into third place.
But with just eight minutes of the 35-minute final left, she picked her waves perfectly and scored 7.5 to leap-frog back into first place, leaving Silva needing a combination score of 17.64 to take the lead.
Silva and Bartels reached the final by eliminating Australians Chelsea Georgeson and Pauline Menczer in the first semifinal, while Mulanovich and Todd qualified at the expense of Neridah Falconer and fellow Aussie Laurina McGrath, to set up the first ASP women's final to be contested by competitors from four countries.
Earlier in the day, the last South Africans left in the competition fell to their more experienced competitors when the men's sixth and seventh rounds were completed, leaving just the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals of the men's competition to be surfed on Sunday.
An on-fire Che Stang of the US continued with his fine run in the contest to win heat four of the sixth round. He advances to today's quarterfinals with second-placed Hawaiian Ross Williams.
Team Red wildcard Daniel Redman's third place ended his run. East London's Roydon Bryson finished fourth behind Hawaii's Shane Dorian, Australian Mark Bannister and Norimasa Ohno of Japan in heat eight of the same round.
Surfing begins at 10am on Sunday with the men's finalists taking to the water at 2.40pm.
The finals will be televised live on e.tv.
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