Bodyboaring: Port Macquarie Bodyboarding Association brings back its teams challenge

So he knows better than most what it means to the local bodyboarding community for this weekend’s teams challenge to make its return.

“It's a really proud feeling to surf for your club,” he said.

“The teams challenge is the one event where you’re not thinking about winning for yourself, you’re only thinking about not letting your other nine teammates down.”

Filipek and the Port Macquarie boys will face some tough opposition in the form of Cronulla, Forster, Central Coast and Sydney when they hit the water on Saturday.

Tournament organiser Matt Norris said the previous teams challenge was held two years ago and the association felt it was time for it to make a comeback.

“We bought it back because a lot of people have been asking for it because it didn’t run for a couple of years,” he said.

“It’s non-elimination, there are four riders per heat and each rider gets to surf three times over the event.

Points are awarded for first position all the way down to seventh.

Norris said a local vintage team had put its hand up to compete with names such as Peter Gleeson and former world champion Micheal Eppulston returning to town for the event.

“There might be a bit of sabotage involved from the vintage guys,” Norris said.

“But it’s about having a bit of fun because we’re not doing a world title race.”

Norris was impressed with the amount of teams they had signed up with the limited time they had to organise the competition.

“We’ve only had two months to organise it and we’ve got seven teams, so it’s been a good response we’ve had with the limited time we’ve had to do it,” he said.

“Next year we’ll have a lot more time to prepare it and we’re looking at having teams coming from interstate like Western Australia and South Australia.”