Surfing: Only three Kiwi surfers survive

Beyrick de Vries from South Africa shows the form that won him heat one in qualifying round four of the boys under-18 division. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Just three Kiwis are left at the ISA world junior surf championships in Piha as the competition enters the penultimate day.

With blue skies and offshore winds bringing 4-6ft solid lines marching in to Piha on day six, organisers were able to shoehorn in a backlog of heats created by wild weather in Piha over the opening days of the competition.

The jam-packed schedule ensured numbers in each field had dropped substantially by the end of the day.

The conditions proved conducive to competition surfing, though, with some brilliant scores recorded as the performance levels lifted several notches on day six.

After an intense day of competition only Ben Poulter (under-16 boys), Alex Dive (under-18 boys) and Sarah Mason (under-18 girls) are left flying the flag for the home nation.

Poulter continues to head the Kiwi challenge, charging into the fifth round of the main event.

In his fourth-round heat in solid surf, Poulter scored waves of 6 and 5.25 to place second behind Aussie Matt Banning (12.15) and move through to the last six undefeated surfers in the under-16 division.

The Raglan youngster now faces a tough fifth-round heat showdown against American Kolohe Andino and Japan's Hirot Arai, with the top two advancing. Andino produced the stand-out performance on day six, collecting the highest individual wave score (9.25) and two-wave heat total (18.00) recorded all week.

The rest of the Kiwis will continue to tread the knife-edge of repechage heats on Auckland's west coast today.

Mt Maunganui's Alex Dive was thriving under that pressure yesterday as he advanced through two rounds of repechage heats, scoring well in both.

Dive finished second in his first heat of the day - his score of 14.25 was just .30 off the winner, Andrew Doheny of the United States.

The young Kiwi then backed up strongly by taking out his heat in the following round, outclassing highly rated Hawaiian pair Keanu Asing and Ezekiel Lau with a score of 14.85.

It was not such good news for his New Zealand teammate Johnny Hick after the Gisborne surfer's run came to an end in the under-18 division with a third placing in his fourth-round heat.

Dive will face some stiff competition as he enters the latter rounds of the competition, with a number of top names likely to feature.

One is South Africa's Beyrick de Vries, who emerged as a strong contender after impressing in the opening heat of the day in the mainevent, shredding apart the barrelling 6ft waves to amass a score of15.00.

Piha local Tane Wallis' resurgence ended in the fifth round of the boys' under-16 repechages.

Mason, one of the top local hopes at the competition, advanced through to the sixth round of the girls' under-18s after winning her two heats yesterday.

Fellow Kiwis Jayda Martin-Fitzharris was a distant third in her fourth-round heat, while Alexis Poulter exited in round five.