A formerly homeless Cape Town surfer, who was orphaned in his early teens, has overcome daunting personal, economic, and logistical obstacles to come within reach of competing on the international stage.
Paul Sampson, who was dogged by poverty and spent part of his early childhood in landlocked Kimberley before moving back to Cape Town, shot up the competitive surfing rankings when he won theThe win meant Sampson, who for a while lived in caves on the Muizenberg mountain with his late mother when he was a child, earned enough points to catapult him into the World Surf League’s Challenger Series.
Surf journalist and author Steve Pike said being able to accumulate the points needed to get seeded at the top of the Qualifying Series didn’t just mean getting good results at competitions, it also meant finding the means to travel to competitions across the country, and afford the entry fees, which were in dollars.
‘The first time I encountered going into the ocean, I was hooked,’ he said. ‘I fell in love with the sport.’But it wasn’t long before he was living rough with his half-brother, his mom, and her boyfriend. Standing on the beachfront, he was able to point out the overhang they lived under, also mentioning a cave on the slope above the Muizenberg police station.
Sampson has continued to enter local, and some international competitions such as in Sri Lanka last year, where he worked at a surf camp in order to win prize money.
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