Junior Double World Champ takes on the Experts

David Speller, Jersey Sports Council Person of the Year 2005, heads out to California today to take part in the Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival (SCKSF) – a major event in the Surf Kayaking World which runs from 24 – 26 March.

De la Salle College student Speller, aged 15, is the reigning Junior World Champion in both the International and High Performance classes, titles that he won in Costa Rica in 2005.

In Santa Cruz he will again contest International and High Performance classes but this time in the Expert category, there being no specific junior events at the festival.

Speller has been kayaking since the age of seven and took to the sport of surf kayaking aged twelve. In this discipline contestants are judged on their skill on the waves and the manouevres that they perform.

The Santa Cruz festival is one of the five surf-kaying events in the new 2006 World Cup Invitational, an event designed to choose the supreme international high performance athlete. A good result here will stand Speller in good stead for the finals in Thurso, Scotland later this year.

Competing alongside Speller will be fellow Jersey Surf Kayak Club members Stuart McGlinchey and Ailsa McDougall.

• David Speller is sponsored by Deutsche Bank