Willcox rides crest of SWAS wave

Surfing prodigy Jacob Willcox became the first back-to-back South West Academy of Sport sports star of the year when he was presented with the prestigious award at a glittering ceremony hosted by the Lighthouse Beach Resort on Friday.

The 17-year-old shot to Australian and international prominence when he beat 11-time world champion Kelly Slater in the opening round of the Moche Rip Curl Pro at Supertubos in Portugal late last year.

Jacob rode the wave of that success into 2014, winning a pair of junior tour events in Sydney and New Zealand and also adding a further two quarterfinal appearances to his long list of achievements.

The Margaret River resident said he felt privileged to be crowned Sports Star of the Year ahead of a strong field that also included Rachelle Smith (BMX), Coby Green (hockey), Connor Blakely (AFL) and Maddy Muller-Hughes (tennis).“I felt confident that I was in the running but there are heaps of good athletes in the SWAS program so I knew it would be very hard to take out the award again, ” he said.

“I focused on surfing a lot more at the start of the year and that is when I got the majority of good results — the end half of the year I really had to knuckle down at school but I learned a lot from having to balance both scenes.”

Jacob said the opportunity to surf in two World Championship Tour events were the highlights of his year and that he was looking forward to dedicating more time to his sport after completing Year 12 earlier this month.

“The dream is to get onto the world tour so I will probably take a couple of gap years and focus on getting my weight up so that I am on an even playing field when the waves start getting big, ” he said.

Jacob was also named the SWAS individual male athlete of the year.BMX champion Rachelle Smith was crowned both the individual female athlete and community achiever of the year for the time she volunteers to the Bunbury BMX Club as a junior coach.

“Giving back to my club is really important to me because they have done so much for the sport and myself personally, ” Rachelle said.

“I wasn’t aware of the community achiever award heading into the evening but it was a huge honour to be recognised for more than just my own results on the bike.”Tennis talent Maddy Muller-Hughes was named partner sport female athlete of the year, AFL prospect Connor Blakely’s efforts on the football field paid off when he received the partner sport male athlete of the year award and hockey dynamo Coby Green was named emerging star.

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