By TANIA PHILLIPS
KINGSCLIFF teen Codie Klein may look like any other university student at Bond University this week – but she will probably be the only one with a World Surfing Games silver medal and a couple of Australian Surf Lifesaving golds under her belt.
The 19-year-old commerce and finance student has just returned from Panama as part of the Australian surfing team.
She missed gold in the women’s division of the Reef ISA World Surfing Games by just 0.8 of a point, losing to team-mate Sunshine Coast surfer Dimity Stoyle.
Stoyle was the dominant surfer throughout the women’s competition and after winning the last qualifying heat with a score of 12.74 she completed a triumphant week, taking the final with a score of 13.30 ahead of Klein (12.63), Brazil’s Suelen Naraisa (12.47) and New Zealand’s Ella Williams (10.83).
In a clean 2-3ft (1 metre) swell, the lead changed five times during the final between Naraisa, Klein and Stoyle before the Sunshine Coast surfer snatched the lead from Klein with five minutes remaining and held on for the win.
It was a hectic day for Klein who surged into the final on the back of three elimination repechage heats in which she had to finish first or second to reach the final. She collected two firsts and a second with scores of 15.27, 13.00 and 10.10.
The event on the right-hand, reef break at Santa Catalina attracted more than 150 leading surfers from 24 countries. TravelSIM Team Australia finished second in the teams event behind South Africa.
Just two weeks before she took two gold medals at the Australian Surf Lifesaving titles at Tugun competing for Cudgen Headland.
“I kind of do that more for the club to get points,” she said of the Aussie titles.
“I compete in the surfing events – which isn’t quite as competitive as the surf lifesaving events. But it’s good for the club.”
But while the former Kingscliff High student has had a busy year of competing – it didn’t keep her from her studies long.
“I went back to uni the day after I came back,” she laughed. The 19-year-old is on a scholarship to Bond Uni studying commerce and finance part-time. She said she is able to fit it around her surfing, doing two subjects at the start of the year when it is busy and adding more later.
And while university is there to give her something to “fall back on” Codie said she would head to Europe later in the year for the World Qualifying Series events and would like nothing more to join fellow Kingscliff surfer Stephanie Gilmore on the world stage.
