It might be early days, but 16-year-old Jack Robinson might be living up to his nickname as the ‘new Kelly Slater’. The teenager battled three-metre waves, taking out the North Shore Surf Shop Pro Junior Champion in Hawaii in late January and came back to Australia to compete in the Hunter Business Boardriders Pro Junior Championship in Newcastle.
The Western Australian young gun with Greek Australian ancestry has now been picked up by sponsor Billabong, defecting from his previous sponsor Ripcurl. The company announced their partnership two weeks after the competition in Hawaii, where Robinson was seen without sponsor stickers on his board.
Robinson joins surfing greats Martin Potter, Tom Curren, Occy, Kelly Slater, Andy Irons, and Dane Reynolds as Billabong ambassadors. High praise came from all round performer, Taj Burrow, who said “there’s not a better 16-year-old on the planet that can ride the tube like he can, he’s as good as it gets”.
As a 10-year-old, Robinson was making the rounds, already threading barrels on waves that were two or three times his size and achieving air reverses better than some of the professionals on the world tour.
