A "world" team including New Zealand's Paige Hareb has won an event featuring the world's best surfers in a man-made wave pool in California.
New Zealand surfer Paige Hareb sits in a tube during the inaugural Founders Cup. Photo: Photosport/WSL
Hareb teamed up with surfers from South Africa, Japan and Tahiti to take out the World Surf League's Founders Cup at the inland venue called the Surf Ranch.
After winning a sudden-death surf-off against competition favourites Australia, the world team scored eight points in the final, with Brazil scoring seven and the USA four.
The two-day event also included a team from Europe.
Ten years in the making, the WSL Surf Ranch is the longest open barrel, man-made wave in the world and can run both left and right.
American surf legend Kelly Slater, an 11-time world champion who still competes on the Word Tour, was the driving force and brains behind the project.
While the event did not count for points on the World Tours, both the men's and women best return to the wave in September for individual competitions.
Hareb, who is back on the World Tour after a three-year absence, has been eliminated after the second round of all three events so far this year.
The Taranaki surfer is in her seventh year as part of the World Tour since her debut in 2009, when she recorded her best overall finish of ninth.
- RNZ
