Para Surfer Jean-Paul Veaudry won bronze at the World Para Surfing Championships before riding the waves of determination to tackle another event where he came first:
California, USA (27 November 2023)—Representing the Eastern Cape and South Africa at the 2023 ISA World Para Surfing Championships recently, was para surfer Jean-Paul Veaudry. There, he rode against both competitive waves and his own challenges to a bronze victory and then some.
While Veaudry shared that he ‘settled for bronze’ despite a winning destiny, the podium placement means the world to those who look up to the para surfer and represented many locals both inspiring and believing in him.
It had been a big crowdfunding effort that supported his chance to surf in the competition thanks to those whose belief backed him, and ultimately the Springboks’ win that inspired him to compete when back issues almost took him out of the race.
During the Championships, a moment ‘interference’ cost him his second wave score, resulting in a lower score overall. Interference in surfing refers to one competitor hindering another’s chance to get the best score when they have priority over a wave. In Veaudry’s case, he was the hinderer because he assumed the direction of his competitor, and as a result, lost his own second score.
“Impossible to win with one wave score, I managed a 3rd,” he shared of the moment he dubbed one of feeling ‘deflated, but not defeated.’
He was almost down and out after the mishap. But those who follow Veaudry’s surfing finesse know that this is an athlete who rides no wave better than the wave of determination.
In fact, his entire para-surfing career is based on it. As a surfer who was involved in a hit-and-run collision on his motorcycle in 2009 which left him with an amputated leg, his determination has led him from getting back into the water (he’s loved surfing since the age of 14) to becoming a celebrated para surfer who has represented Team SA.
As such, he returned to California’s waters to ‘redeem himself’ and went on another event as part of the Para Surf League Global Championships’ finals!
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Should Para Surfing become part of the Paralympics in 2028, we have no doubt that South Africa will back our water warriors and potential participants like Veaudry in a sea of support.
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