The UK's new surf champ

Can Oli Adams carve a place in surf history?

Growing up with a parent from either hemisphere of the planet has one huge advantage. There’s two summers every year, if you get the travel right and know what to do with it. Someone who’s put this theory to best use is Oli Adams. Beginning his surf career at the age of 6, Oli has rocketed through the junior ranks to hold both the New Zealand and United Kingdom Junior titles. Joining the World Qualifying Series in 2006, he recently scored a win at the AXL/DOH Pro event at Porthcawl. WideWorld caught up with Oli after his win to speak with him about surf, support, and his future plans.

Do you have to start surfing early in life to get this good?

My mum was a surfer. She used to take me out in the surf and push me into the waves when I was about five or six. I was too little to paddle into them myself. By the age of eight I was away surfing by myself and have done pretty much every day since then.

Where are the best of those days spent surfing?

That would have to be the north coast of Scotland. Some of the best waves in the world, beautiful landscape and no crowds.

How is the UK surfing scene doing compared to USA, Australia and the rest of Europe?

Well the difference is that in Australia – and to a certain extent the U.S – surfing is one of the main high profile sports. In Australia, the top surfers are celebrities like footballers are here, so the money, coaching and structures are all in place to help young surfers develop their talent. In the UK we get no help from Sport England so it's really hard for our surfers to get out there and gain the experience needed to improve. Every time I have represented Britain at the European or World Championships I've had to pay my own way to get there.

Other than that, the UK surfing scene is great and is getting better all the time. But again in European countries like France you get government funding and better sponsorship within the surf industry, so they have a much better chance to get out there and win medals.

Is surfing getting more popular now in the UK?

Surfing is definitely on the way up in the UK. We have two world tour events now and it's starting to get more and more mainstream coverage now. I even had a live interview on Sky Sports News this summer, which was funny for me because I watch Sky everyday for the football stories!

You won the UK Pro Surf Tour at Porthcawl this month – how was the competition?

It was amazing to win because the standard in surfing in the UK is really good these days and getting better all the time. I've been recovering from an illness the last few years so I haven't really been doing many events as I didn't have energy, so this last event was pretty much my comeback event. I finally felt I was back to a good fitness, and so this win gives me loads of confidence going into next year on the world tour.

What's it like being a professional surfer? Is it a great lifestyle?

It's so amazing and I feel so lucky to be able to do this for a job. Surfing is the best thing in the world – and in my whole life, anyway.

Any hope the next Surfing World Champion is from UK? And who might that be?

Well, we won't have the next World Champion and to be honest I don't think it's going to happen for a long time yet. But a more realistic goal would be to qualify for the elite top 44 World Tour and compete in the major events around the world. This is what I'm trying to achieve at the moment: to become only the second British surfer ever to do that.

For more details about the UK Pro Surf tour see www.ukprosurf.com