20 year old Mustofa Jeksen used his small waves skills and finely honed contest experience to win the coveted wildcard spot in today’s trial event for the Oakley Pro Junior Global Challenge Final that is set to start tomorrow morning at Keramas Beach in Gianyar.
In arguably the most testing conditions of the day, Jeksen bested Made Darmayasa in the 20 minute final by holding on to his priority then waiting for the best of the meager selection of waves that pushed through, then snapping off as many aggressive turns as possible, jumping into the lead and then protecting it until the horn blew.
Made Darmayasa had been surfing extremely well all morning, leading MC Tai “Buddha” Graham to speculate early on that Darmyasa could very well win the wildcard spot, but his lack of contest experience and the priority system in a man-on-man final appeared to be his downfall, but he certainly put up a good showing for himself.
24 Indonesian pro juniors started the day with the goal of nabbing the wildcard birth for tomorrows event, but only one would exit the day with the big prize and that was Jeksen. Very stoked with his win today, Mustofa Jeksen couldn’t stop smiling, saying “I’m so happy to have won the wild card spot today, so I can have a chance to surf against the other guys tomorrow. It was tough out there but I wanted it so bad, I just went for it every chance I had. I’m so grateful for this chance, thanks Oakley!”
Jeksen will now join Oakley Indonesia Team rider Dewa Ardika as the two Indonesian wild cards that will compete against 16 of the world’s best pro junior surfers from around the world for the whopping $20,000 USD first place prize on offer. Just for getting into the event brings them a paycheck of $2,000 USD.
They will be up against names like Clay Marzo, Grainger Larson, Nat Young, last year’s runner up Marc Lacomare, Kai Barger, Shaun Joubert, and Wiggolly Dantes competing for the big cash in the event that will be running during the waiting period of 7-17 October at Keramas Beach in the Gianyar Regency of Bali.
The contest is scheduled to get underway tomorrow morning around 7:30 am, depending upon conditions.
The Oakley Pro Junior Global Challenge Trial Event was produced and sanctioned by the Coca Cola Indonesian Surfing Championship Tour as part of it Pro Junior Division circuit. All the Indonesian Pro Junior surfers that competed in this event obtained points towards the Coca-Cola ISC Tour Pro Junior 2009 Championship.
Photos: Tim Hain – Coca-Cola ISC Tour
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