The Barbados Surfing team which competed at the ISA World Surfing Games in El Salvador. From left: Manager Margot Tuach, Joshua Burke, Chelsea Tuach, Bruce Mackie, Che Allan, Chelsea Roett and Gabrielle Gittens.
Last Bajan surfers eliminated
Barbados’ dream of seeing a surfer at the Tokyo Olympics this year has ended. The last two surfers in the repechage of the 2021 ISA World Surf Games in El Salvador – Joshua Burke and Chelsea Tuach – were eliminated yesterday.
Tuach won her repechage 3 heat with 9.97 thanks to two waves scoring 5.27 and 4.70. However, in repechage 4 she was not as fortunate, narrowly missing out on an advancing place when she finished third.
Tuach ended with 8.96; while the second place finisher Shelby Detmers from Mexico had 9.0. It meant Tuach, who had scoring waves of 5.13 and 3.83, needed to replace her low score with at least a 3.88 to advance but was unable to.
For Burke, he was also unlucky not to advance to the next repechage after he dropped a first wave of 5.83 to open up the heat.
But he was unable to find a wave to support this and struggled for the rest of the heat to get a wave.
In the final moments he made a last ditch effort but the wave closed out and it only managed to earn 1.83 and not the required 4.23 to advance.
Burke finished third with a combined total of 7.70 points, while Ramzi Boukhiam was second in the heat with 10.06.
Burke was also unfortunate to receive a gash on his head during the heat.
Burke and Tuach made their exit in repechage 4 and now all six members of the Barbados team have been eliminated.
The full Barbados Surfing team was Burke, Tuach, Bruce Mackie, Che Allan, Chelsea Roett and Gabrielle Gittens. The manager was Margot Tuach. (CG)