Photo Gallery: Bodyboarding championships
Matt Holzman and Melanie Bartels earned wins at the Sandy Beach Challenge bodyboarding contest in 1- to 3-foot waves Sunday.
While being chaired up the beach by his friends, Holzman had a look of pure stoke on his face.
The 19-year-old from Kekaha, Kauai, had just won his first pro bodyboarding contest against some of his childhood idols.
"I have never felt like this before. I am feeling awesome," he said. "I dreamed about winning and it finally happened. There are not too many words to explain it, but I have envisualized it before, so now that it actually happened it’s definitely a dream come true."
The win, however, did not come easy for Holzman. At the halfway point in the heat Jacob Romero of Maui was far out in the lead with the rest of the competitors needing a combination of two scores to overtake the lead.
Romero had scored a nine (out of 10) for a huge backflip in the air. It was hands down the biggest maneuver of the contest.
Undaunted, Holzman kept his cool and found a wave in which he got barreled at the takeoff and followed with a huge air and then another big air that had him landing right onto the sand and earning him a 9.5. The crowd went wild.
"At that point, I was in a combo situation, but I was just going with the flow," said Holzman about his thoughts halfway through the heat. "I was not stressed, I was just searching and hunting for a couple of waves and then surfed them how I normally would. I got lucky, I guess."
The win puts Holzman in the lead for the new International Bodyboarders Association Hawaii tour. The next stop is Keaau beach on the westside of Oahu.
On the women’s side, Oahu’s Melanie Bartels took the win and added to her diverse list of accomplishments. Bartels has now won professional events in shortboarding, longboarding and now bodyboarding.
"I’m feeling really good," she said. "I am stoked just to be here and the waves were fun. I have never won a pro bodyboard contest. I came really close a couple times."
The waves for the women’s final were on the slow side, so strategy became a factor.
"I really wanted to bust a fat a.r.s. (air-roll-spin), but it didn’t really go my way, " Bartels said. " It was tricky, but my goal was to do at least two rollos and ride it to the shore."
