Some of Australia’s brightest young surfing talent descended on Sunshine Beach in August for the inaugural Murf Electric Bikes Noosa Pro Junior, with Durack Civil proud to support an event providing the next generation of surfers with a pathway onto the international stage.
Held in Noosa on August 25 and 26, the World Surf League Pro Junior event brought together leading surfers aged 20 and under from across Australia and Oceania for two days of competition.
For many of the young athletes in the water, events like these represent much more than a weekend of competition. They are an opportunity to test themselves against the region’s best, build experience and take another step towards competing internationally.
That pathway became very real for Australian surfer Milla Coco Brown.
Brown claimed her second event victory of the season at Sunshine Beach, a result that moved her to the top of the WSL Australia/Oceania rankings and secured her place at the World Junior Championships in El Salvador this November.
“It’s been a big day for me,” Brown said after the final. “I had to win the Final to win the series, and now I get the big silver trophy, so I’m frothing.”
On the men’s side, Willem Watson celebrated his first WSL Pro Junior victory, made all the more memorable by achieving it in front of family and friends on his home stretch of coastline.
“It feels so good to get a win,” Watson said. “Especially with it being the last event of the year and at home, it just makes it that much more special.”
The event also helped determine the surfers who will represent the Australia/Oceania region at the World Junior Championships, with Brown and Willow Hardy qualifying in the women’s division and Ocean Lancaster and reigning World Junior Champion Dane Henry taking the men’s spots.
For Durack Civil, supporting the Noosa Pro Junior forms part of a broader commitment to backing grassroots sport, regional events and community organisations across the places in which we live and work.
Whether it is a junior surfer chasing an opportunity on the world stage, a local sporting club bringing families together or a community event creating connections beyond the competition itself, these organisations rely on people and businesses getting behind them.
Durack Civil works across communities throughout Queensland and Australia, and we believe our contribution to those places should extend beyond the projects we deliver.
The Noosa Pro Junior offered a chance to support an event built around opportunity: giving talented young athletes a platform to compete, develop and see where their ability might take them.
For Brown, Hardy, Lancaster and Henry, that next step will be El Salvador.
For many of the other young surfers who paddled out at Sunshine Beach, it may only be the beginning.