A Rising Super Star at the age of 14

Allana Glowaski, a 14-year-old Gold Coast girl, has stunned the surfing community. She has been absolutely spectacular throughout the year, blowing the minds away of those who are watching. The formula for her success seems so simple yet so extraordinary. Get her near the ocean and no matter what the sport, she is destined to achieve astonishing results.

Allana has been part of Tallebudgera Surf Life Saving Club for 8 years where she made her first steps towards the ocean. Today, at the young age of 14, she completes 4 swim, 3 board, 2 running and 2 iron sessions a week. Mind blowing right!

Allana’s secret passion lies within the Goldie Sliders, a body-surfing club based in Gold Coast’s Narrowneck beach. In those rare moments of freedom away from her SLSC responsibilities, you will again find Allana back in the ocean body-surfing.

This lifestyle has brought Allana into 2 different worlds and 2 different competitions. Unlike SLSC where Allana would compete against girls of her age or slightly older, in the much smaller body-surfing community Allana is set to face women of all ages, who are generally much older and much more experienced. Each competition brings different challenges, where only the most skilled and persistent individuals stand a chance of making it to the top.

Allana, took this challenge with a smile, and her successes in the past year in both SLSC and body-surfing speak for them self.

So let’s start where it all began. At the Wommin Whomp Comp, which is the largest central coast body-surfing event.

Allana, Wommin Whomp Comp was your first body-surfing competition. You competed at both U15’s and Open Women, in what seemed to be treacherous surf conditions. Yet, you blew away the competition and came up with the win in all categories:

“Well for Wommin, I didn’t really go in with any expectations. I wasn’t really a big time bodysurfer…I just had a little idea on what to do for tricks when I got out there. I basically just went out and did some tricks that I was taught the year before and once I started progressing through the rounds, I got into it. After finding out I made the final, I did the best I could to find out any tricks I hadn’t learnt.  I obviously had to get myself in the right mindset to know that whatever happens, happens. The conditions were tricky, a little like a washing machine, but I knew the spins and butterfly tricks were perfect for the waves. It was a big shock finding out I won both U15s and Open Women’s because I knew there was tough competition and I was just a rookie”.

Then came the infamous Slyde Fest Australia. Queensland’s first and largest body-surfing event that attracted attention from the best body-surfers around the world:

“At SlydeFest, I went in with expectations on how I wanted to perform. It was my first comp after joining the Goldie Sliders and I wanted to show off the moves I had been practicing. The waves were small in the morning and built over the day. I had some friendly competition going on with my friend Lewis from Wommin Whompers. I had beaten him at Wommin, so I wanted to settle it for real and progress further than him in this comp. This was the first comp I had done with a hand-board and I pulled off a couple of flips. Using a hand-plane was a new challenge for me. Prior to this comp, I mainly preferred body-surfing with my hands free but I really enjoyed it and have been body surfing with one during most sessions since then. Slyde Hand-boards asked me to ride for them and my favourite board would have to be the Bula”.

Back to Surf Life Saving competitions. You competed in the Summer of Surf competition, against the age group above yours, which must have been very tough, yet you followed your trend of taking on the challenges. The bigger the better:

“As surf life-saving is my main sport, I had high expectations to do well and see how I placed amongst the older girls. This was always going to be an interesting carnival as it’s my first year riding a mal and the girls I was competing against have a good year or two experience on them. Round 1 was held at Burleigh and my first race was the board and it set me back a bit. The board race is my favourite (and strongest) race. I expected more than my performance. I placed 9th in my heat, which caused me to miss the final by one place. This rattled me a bit and my mindset was a bit off. I had to get my focus back up for the swim race. I placed 18th out of 38 girls and regained some confidence seeing that most of the girls in front of me were from the older age group. I then had the iron-woman race and put in a big effort in the semi-final, then making it to the final. This was huge as only 3 competitors from my own age group made the final and it was to be live streamed as well. I started off the race well (the format was board, run, swim, run). On the run home, I was in 6th place and then made a couple of costly errors which cost me the race. I finished 14th out of 16 girls and enjoyed the experience. I was proud to make the final and gave me some reassurance that I would have placed better had I raced without making those mistakes.

Round 2 Summer of Surf was held at Mermaid Beach last weekend and, after a couple of strong carnivals recently, I woke up determined to make the final of the swim, board and iron-woman. This time, the competitor list was much larger and of the 3 heats for the iron-woman and board race, you needed to finish top 7 to qualify for finals. The swim was top 15 to qualify. I made it through to the iron final, which would be run later in the day. I performed well all morning and finished up 11th in the board and the swim finals. Then the announcement was made that the iron-woman final would be run in the M-Shaped Format. This was daunting and super exciting as it’s one of the ways the professionals race and we’ve never raced like this before. This format gives more opportunities but also more chances to make mistakes as you fatigue and go in and out of the break zone. I raced strong and smart and unlike Round 1, I didn’t make costly errors. I finished up 9th and was the first competitor over the line from my own age group”.

After this tournament, came the Interbranch Championship and QLD Youth Cyclones team selection. This was your biggest challenge to date. You have put so many hours into this sport and naturally there was an enormous amount of pressure to perform building up. Yet, once again, you did it!:

“Different to the previous carnivals, Interbranch was probably the biggest carnival so far for me. This carnival would finish with a decision made on whether or not I was selected for the Qld Youth Cyclones Representative Team. This has been a huge goal for me for the past 12 months and is the highest level you can compete at this age. I’d like to say I went out with no pressure on myself, however as the day unfolded, it brought on more and more pressure. Generally, I would have nerves going into a competition, however this competition delivered nerves of a whole new level. Throughout the day, we achieved highly individually and as a team, generally getting 1st and 2nd for most of the races. This surf was pretty wild and not unlike a washing machine and the swim race rattled me a little as I missed a wave and didn’t place where I expected to. I just had to shake off the nerves and anxiety and just do what I do best for the remaining races. When my name was called out as one of the 4 girls selected for water, I was surprised and ecstatic at the same time. I knew that I had done what was needed to make the team but it is my biggest achievement so far and it probably took a day to sink in.”

Thank you Allana for taking time to talk to us. We wish you all the best in your future endevours!