Fifth World Surfing Championship Program

During the first World Surfing Championships at Manly in Sydney in 1964, the sport’s first international governing body was formed, called the International Surfing Federation. The success of the inaugural world titles prompted the ISF to stage annual world championship events in 1965 and 1966, but the titles were then re-scheduled to be held every two years. Australia won the right to stage the 1970 event, with Bells Beach as the base location. Just weeks before the contest was due to run in early May, local organisers had failed to gain enough financial sponsorship and were faced with possibly cancelling it. Remarkably, the conservative premier of the time was persuaded to provide $20,000 of state government funding to ensure the competition went ahead. Then plagued by poor weather and mostly poor surf, Americans Rolf Aurness and Sharon Webber were surprise winners over favoured Australians. The event also earned negative newspaper headlines after one American competitor was arrested for starting a food fight in a local hotel, while a police raid on competitors’ hotel rooms turned up a small amount of marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms, although nobody was arrested.