AT the closing ceremony of the World Surf Kayak Championships in Costa Rica Jersey’s David Speller was crowned International Class Junior World Champion, winning the final from Ireland’s Chris Hobson.

Five minutes later the results of the Junior Open final were announced and Speller became a double world champion, taking the heat from favourite David Licht of the USA.

Speller’s championship wins were the highlights of the last day of competition, for Jersey’s efforts in the team event saw them slip out of title contention to finish in fourth place overall.

Although the team finals started well for Jersey, the luck of the waves slipped by which meant that although they had done well to reach the final stages, with just nine surfers making up their team compared to the 16 the other teams had, finishing in any of the top three places was always beyond them.

As it was USA West came in first with a tie break between Ireland and USA East for second and third, with Ireland taking it by one heat win over East.

Individually Ailsa McDougall surfed her best heats before an interference call against her meant that her heat win was nullified, which meant she had to settle for fourth.

Chris Ollivier, on the other hand, won both of his heats while team-mate Chris Harvey won one and was second in the other.

With a mixed bag of results from the rest of the team their wins were, in the end, only good enough to put the team into fourth place overall.

Jersey did have more success, though.

In both the Masters International and Open Classes Chris Ollivier finished in fourth place and could have done better in the finals if wave conditions hadn’t been so poor.

Even so, as team member Stuart McGlinchey pointed out, speaking from Costa Rica at the end of fierce, if friendly competition, to be fourth in the world is a notable achievement for an Island the size of Jersey, and: ‘although the event is now over: ‘Team Jersey can be proud of being in the top four teams in the intervening period before the next world tournament in another two years’ time.’