The Hill Will Shake This Weekend At Burleigh Heads
The Australian Boardriders Battle returns.
The 2026 NRMA Insurance Australian Boardriders Battle Grand Final is set to run at Burleigh Heads this weekend, March 7–8.
The Australian Boardriders Battle, or ABB, if you’re time-poor, is a reimagining of the competitive surf format. A team structure: five surfers per club. One surfer in the water at a time. Heats last 70 minutes. Every surfer’s best wave contributes to the team’s score. All five must complete the course by physically running up the Burleigh hill and crossing the line before the horn.
Feels like something from a different era, but perhaps instructive in the way old things sometimes are.
What’s it teaching?
Possibly this: Surfing edges closer to sport when teams and running races enter the picture. Is this how surfing becomes a real sport? Could the model scale? Would you not pay good money to watch Team Hawaii vs Team Brazil? Australia vs the USA in a proper turf war?
There’s something both wonderful and tragic about stripping surfing from its individualistic sheen and recasting it as a team sport. Win or lose, when it’s a team, the stakes feel higher. And let me assure you, in the most candid of terms, this is as thrilling as any surf comp has ever dared to be. Last year, I was weeping on the hill. Here are a few moments that got my cheeks wet.
Mikey Wright does a lap of Burleigh in 6 minutes
Time’s winding down for Culburra in the quarterfinal. They’re sitting in fourth, and the top three get to move on. Dax Caincross is out there, somewhere in the soup of Burleigh, looking for a score. But he’s running out of time. The clock’s ticking, the hill’s looming, and one surfer still has to do the whole lap — catch a wave, then run back, or else they get docked five points. Dax has to make a call: stay or come in?
He opts for land.
Mikey Wright’s waiting.
Dax tags him with a measly six minutes left. Mikey, looking like he’s one bad thought away from snapping, charges down the headland. He bounds down the rocks, over them like a maniac, hits the water, paddles out, and immediately catches a wave. He attacks it thrice over. Time’s bleeding.
He claws his way up the hill like something recently unchained. The mullet is airborne, flapping like a warning flag. The crowd gives him the noise he needs. Mikey feeds off it, pushing himself over the line with two minutes to spare.
“A walk in the park, mate,” says Mikey, years of pig-chasing translating neatly into elite cardiovascular endurance. Post-surfing, Mikey allegedly has a career plan: contract-shooter. A paid killer.
Culburra move into the semis.
Heartbreak for North Shelly and Hughie Vaughan
Final minutes of the first semi. Hughie Vaughan gets a score, North Shelly slide into third. Just one thing left: the run.
The Burleigh crowd goes taut. Hughie hits the sand and the yelling starts.
“He’s cooked!”
“Fucking run, Hughie!”
“Fifty-one seconds is the record,” someone nearby announces. Hughie’s got about that, maybe less, to drag himself to the top.
He glances at the clock, hunches forward, and runs like hell. At the bend, it’s still unclear. The hill is packed and screaming, a thousand voices, foaming and desperate, trying to will him upward. Halfway up, he lifts his eyes. It hits him. His stride falters. The hill stretches. The finish line pulls away. Snapper starts to cheer. North Shelly miss the line, cop a five-point deduction, and sink to fourth.
Leihani Zoric goes near-perfect, pushes Byron Bay into the final
Byron’s in fifth, drifting backwards, and looking done for. What they need is divine intervention. Or Leihani Zoric.
The clock’s ticking, hope’s fading, but then Leihani picks up a runner. Three savage gauges and a clean little float to finish. The crowd loses it. Just like that, Byron’s alive again, thanks to their youngest team member. Leihani: 12 years old. Byron Bay: moves into final.
North Shore Wins Australian Boardriders Battle
By the final, Burleigh hill is at full boil. The top bar’s spilling over, the path’s clogged with bodies craned toward the water, all sweat and sun and vague sporting nationalism. The teams left standing are a mix of seasoned title-hoarders and regional hopefuls: Snapper Rocks, North End, North Shore, Merewether, Byron Bay, Torquay.
With twenty minutes to go, most of the scores are banked. Three teams are still in the hunt: North Shore, Merewether, and Torquay. The lead swings like a butcher’s hook. On the lower hill, Torquay’s team is huddled tight — arms linked, voices low. They’ve never won one of these.
“We’ve all bled for this,” says team captain Tully Wylie. “I’ve surfed a lot of events, but nothing comes close to the nerves here. We’ve got a shot, and I’m freaking out.”
Can they pull it off?
“Fuck yeah we can.”
Xavier Huxtable, who’s been ice-cold all weekend, wades out. Final leg. Last chance for Torquay. North Shore sends in their anchor too. The two trade waves — short, sharp combos. Clock’s ticking. They come in. The last threat is Merewether’s Morgan Cibilic. He’s still in the water, hunting something miraculous.
The final scores trickle in like test results. It swings North Shore’s way. Torquay fold into each other. Morgs flares on a final wave and crashes.
“I was a little pushed for time,” says Morgs. “I couldn’t quite squeeze in the second turn. I’m spewing. This events is super fun, but it’s also super serious. But, when you’re running up the hill and getting beers and Jim Beam thrown on you — it doesn’t get much better than that.”
North Shore win. The hill erupts. Champagne flies. Beers are opened and poured mostly onto heads.
We’ll have a full comp wrap of the weekend’s festivities post-event. But, if you’re in town, within driving distance, or rich enough to be in flying distance, see you on the hill.
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