yeah, I am 7 for 7 right now going into round three. Luckily I didnt follow my heart while chosing surfers. I stuck with local knowledge, and kelly of course, and so far its paying off. And yeah, the current was brutal but still. Half the time i dont ride all the way to an inside reef because I don't want to paddle 400 yards back out to the lineup, so the same thinking should hold true in contests... But the ski did seem to help... I really liked how D'sauza from Brazil handled his business. A true professional. A real thinker. He sat like 100 yards inside of his competetor in round two, and just took mad waves. He was just doing turns and milking sections but linking up for a long time. Mean while the other guy was waiting deep for sets that never come... it was good to see his tactics work... He was like, im just going to shred all the little wedges that come through and not take a chance on a too-deep closeout barrel section on the take off..... He was racking up 6s, 5s, 7s, 6s before the other guy even scored a wave... And the redbull ski just made it easier. He was killing it. He surfed incredibly smart today, and I was digging it. Usually im not a fan of the brazillians, but he was just out surfing guys based on good decisions.
yea, i have jordy, taj, mick, parko, and owen as serious contenders, swapped kerr out at the last min for cory lopez and matt banting because i heard kerr had been sick, looks fine to me but matt banting has been surfing really well, but he goes up againt kelly in r3 so im not holding my breath..
i have 6/7 in round 3 but 4 of them are up againt eachother in the next heats. so im going to be down 2 guys at least after round 3. hopefully the swell keeps filling in more and more though i wanna see some barrels! and brett simpon killed it in his heat yesterday, on his game for sure
Micks hulk ass got overly competitive with it and got too picky with waves.. he sat there for the last 15m of the heat and didnt catch one wave.. simpo was a stand out again today, and of course jordy killed it
Yeah i had Dusty and Mick so i was going to loose a surfer and advacne no matter what. I have 5 of my 8 surfers thru with the the other 3 making the third round. I have Dusty, Alejo Muniz, Taj, Joel and Jordy left. Josh kerr loosing hurt. I knew I would loose two surfers yesterday cause i had going up against each other. My surfers out are Mick, Julian Wilson, and Kerr. NOt sure how they will place but at least they all made it to round 3.
So it was cool to watch them with the commentary... It is really cool, but cheating that they get skiied back out by redbull after every wave... I thought the paddle fitness was one of the main things on tour. I didnt realize that they just get pulled back out and dropped in the lineup.... They rarely use ski's from the contest i have seen at thats alot in the past year and half. I like it that they use the ski when they have that much current in the water. Guys would be kicking out of waves instead of trying to link stuff up to the inside if they had to paddle agasint that current from way down the beach. Daniel Ross last night (the best paddler on tour) kicked out in about middle of the line up after getting an ok wave. He elected to paddle back out instead of yuse the ski, it took him like 2 minutes to get near the point, another 2 minutes to get into position at least. Im all for seeing more surfing and less paddling when the rip is that strong. Glad you got to watch the event though man, its really cool now-a-days in HD and the commentators due keep it interesting. Anybody watch Slater's heat when they showed the shark just outside the line up! It wasnt small either! By the way Slater's hacks are so ridicoulsy polished the guy at 38 years old is unreal.
Yeah, I saw that. The commentators had some good reactions. Like stated before...the ski's are almost more for your benefit than the competitors. I'm sure they would have no problem paddling the whole time. But, they want to make it as exciting as possible. And, what's more exciting? Watching someone paddle for 5-10mins back to the line-up or riding more waves and linking them further down the point? (And, they don't usually use them)
Damn, I missed the shark incident. I really would have loved to hear what they had to say about that. Last time I remember that happening, it was in AUS like 7-8 years ago. It was CJ hobgood against Taj Burrow, and Taj saw the Shark's fin in the middle of the heat, and he bailed the heat. He took white water in and ran up to the judges talking about it... CJ hobgood is from FL and he said he saw the shark too. He continued surfing, won the heat and advanced... In the post interview, he said something like, Im from Florida, I see sharks all the time. If I got out of the water every time a big fish came around, I would never be surfing... It was crazy... And taj basically said, fu** that, it was not worth the risk... Funny how the Aussie was spooked and the country florida kid stood his ground... And I do understand the ski thing, because of pure entertainment purposes... But paddle fitness is one of the absolute most important factors of being a competetive surfer in any line. Weather you are freesurfing a crowded socal break or in a contest. paddle fitness means everything.... EVERYTHING>.... So that rip was ridiculous, and they wont use the ski at most other spots.... But i really dont like it. Those guys would be surfing COMPLETELY different without the ski D'sauze wouldnt have taken 65 waves in his round 2 heat if he wasnt getting skiied back out. He was back in position 20 seconds after he finished his wave... it would have easily been a 3 minutes position paddle.... In situations like that, the competition is flawed in my opinion. It makes wave selection less important.... We all as surfers know the feeling... Do you want to clean up the little scraps every couple minutes, or stay in position for that set wave that you know is coming.... If you have an insane paddle back up through an impact zone, you are going to think twice before taking a sh** wave.... It just changes EVERYTHING to have the ski... I think it is kind of cool to keep the heat moving, but again, it changes ever aspect of competition.
matter of fact, now that I think about it, the taj burrow cj hobgood incident happened at J-bay in africa... but still... its crazy.
you can imagine I think it was jake patterson and i cant rember who else in the booth calling theSlater ? Banting heat but... the camera man pulled on close on some sea gulls attacking the water it looked like, so the guys were just saying "looks like we have some fish out here" then they zoomed in it was a pretty decent sized shark, then they were like oh god that is a fish mate, said another little statemant about it then the camera panned out and 30 feet maximum away was Matt Banting and Slater paddling against the rip.... It was pretty rad actually to see how close that thing was to the lineup. Not that a shark is cool or anything it was just something i have never seen before in the midlle of a heat.
wow man. I hope that video footage shows up online. If anyone has a link, I would like to see that. Pretty wild. Did slater and banting see it?
+1 to that! If you missed today make sure you check the highlight reel, tons of quality heats. Jordy and Parko went down to the wire, TB was blowing up his heat, awesome to watch!
Yeah, with 8 guys left in the event, I have 3 of them. Kelly, Dusty and Taj. Kelly and Dusty go head to head, so one will be eliminated no matter what, but I really like the odds of these 3 guys up against the other 5. We shall see.
I have alejo, slater, dusty, and jordy left. Jordy/ parko heat was a nail biter! I wish parko won....I just declared that Taj is now my #1 favorite surfer again after his performance yesterday which was truly the best I ever seen him surf, and the quickest. Um, but...Did uh, well... anyone see the girls heats today? It was actually really exciting, and they kinda ripped. I swear I'm straight.
im 4/7 left with slater dusty taj and and jordy left should be cool to see how they convert these to points.
