Bianca Buitendag has won a silver medal in the women’s surfing at the Olympic Games on Tuesday in Tokyo. It is no doubt, a fantastic day for the South African Team. It is however, South Africa’s Second medal of the year after Tatjana Schoenmaker won silver in the 100 m breaststroke earlier in the day.

The final of the surfing which was supposed to hold a day later was brought forward due to concerns over a storm approaching, and Buitendag had earlier continued her good form on Tuesday when she moved past Portugal’s Yolanda Hopkins and America’s Caroline Marks in the quarter-final and semi-final, respectively. 

In the gold medal match, Buitendag lost out to America’s Carissa Moore, going down 14.93 to 8.46. 

It just wasn’t meant to be for the 27-year-old South African, who struggled to get going and find any waves where she could put a competitive score together. 

Moore, meanwhile, had arrived at Tsurigasaki beach as the favourite, and she quickly found a couple of decent waves to open up an early lead over Buitendag that she would not relinquish. 

The scores for the top two waves count for each surfer in a match, and when Moore had put together waves of 7.60 and 7.33, it was always going to be a massive ask for Buitendag to find a way back into the contest.