Lennox Head para-surfer, Joel Taylor, has just returned home with his first championship tour win, having scored first place in the unassisted prone division at the 2024 Costa Rica Open Pro of Adaptive Surfing.
The 43-year-old told The Echo it was his third stop on the AASP world championship tour, which features 65 athletes from 18 countries around the world with US$30,000 prize money.
‘There were clean two-to-three-foot waves all week at Boca Barranca, Costa Rica, which is one of the longest waves in the world. It is a left hand point break at the river mouth of the crocodile-infested Rio Barranca in Golfo de Nicoya,’ he said.
Taylor came second at the first event in Byron Bay in March, third at the second stop. Taylor said he was in Hawaii in May, and is currently second in the rankings, and in the running to win the world tour championship in his rookie year.
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