An international junior surfing competition has gone ahead despite two shark attacks in less than 24 hours on the New South Wales north coast.

Competitors in the Skullcandy Oz Grom Open 2015 were called out of the water at Lennox Head yesterday after a surfer was knocked from his board by a shark at a break near the contest site, but the surfer was unharmed in the incident.

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It followed an attack on a 32-year-old bodyboarder who was mauled at Ballina, 10 kilometres further south, by what is believed to be a great white shark.

This could be the white pointer responsible.

The bodyboarder is reportedly in a critical condition in Gold Coast Hospital with severe wounds to his legs.

It was announced the Oz Grom Open at Lennox Head’s Main Beach would be postponed following the latest attack, but today it was decided the contest would go ahead.

Under 12s and under 16s are eligible to compete in the surfing competition, which started at 9am today.

Detective Inspector and surf contest organiser Cameron Lindsay said there would be a helicopter and plane monitoring from the sky and no chances would be taken.

“Obviously paramount to us is the safety of the kids and the competitors,” he said.

“If there’s any risk to them unfortunately we’re just going to have to start cutting out categories, but we’re hopeful that with the assets we’ve got in place that we’ll be able to go ahead.”

About 270 of the country’s best young surfers are due to take part in the event, which attracts surfers from around the world and is one of the biggest junior competitions in the country.

Ballina Mayor David Wright said there was adequate surveillance in place to ensure competitors in the competition were kept safe.

He said the council had done all it could to enable the event to go ahead.

“To be honest, even with all these planes and helicopters and boats it doesn’t make it foolproof, but what we’re doing is putting in an action plan that we believe is most likely as good as you could possibly do,” he said.

“I don’t know of anything else we could do because the plane’s not flying up and down the coast it’s just going to be circling over the event.”

Meanwhile, a permit has been issued for the capture or destruction of the shark responsible for the attack at Ballina.

A teenager was killed by a shark at the same beach in 2008 and earlier this year, 41-year-old Japanese surfer Tadashi Nakahara died after an attack at nearby Shelly Beach.