BARBADOS once again has a face on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) tour.
This time, that face is female. And her name is Chelsea Roett.
Years after Alan Burke made his mark and left the ASP circuit, Roett has created a splash on the international surfing scene with her professional debut in the Rob Machado Seaside Pro Junior event in California, United States.
And with a seventh place finish in the four-star pro event, the 16-year-old has signalled that her successes at the Rip Curl Grom Search and Ron Jon’s Surf Festival were no accident.
Roett, who had travelled with her parents Wayne and Rachel to the April 22 to 24 competition, blasted her way through the early heats of the day in what, by all accounts, was a nail-biting, down-to-the-wire finish. She posted an 8.83 score to jump into second place behind United States’ Lakey Peterson who totalled 10.73, and left Hawaiian Tatiana Weston-Webb and American Shelby Detmers in her wake.
Peterson eventually went on to take the overall title.
Roett, one of few unranked surfers in the event, posted 6.90 points in her semi-final heat, a mere .27 of a point behind the third-placed surfer. She ended up with an overall seventh-place finish. Roett told MIDWEEK SPORTS that she was extremely thrilled at reaching the semi-finals in her first ASP event.
The Rob Machado Seaside Pro Junior event is the first of three stops on the ASP’s women’s tour and is a qualifier for the ASP World Junior Tour. Roett is the Barbados Junior Surfing Club’s 2010 Under-18 Girls’ champion, as well as the Barbados Surfing Association’s 2010 Under-18 Girls and Open Women’s Division title holder, as well as the BSA’s Under-18 Girls’ Caribbean junior champion.
