oh my word.
Round one started off in some messy conditions (not pictured here^^^), with Jihad Khodr defeating Roy Powers, who were both on their backhands….yep.
Davy Weare defeated Tim Boal, but their heat on demand wasn’t working when I wrote this, so if you want some sort of recap, you’ll have to watch it yourself (assuming it will work by then).
Drew Courtney took down Heitor Alves, despite Heitor being in amazing form for Trestles. The conditions weren’t favorable, and Courtney took one of the bigger waves of the heat to get a macking…4.67? Huh? I did some research, and Courtney pulled a 7 to win the heat, but Billabong is dropping the ball by only showing Alves’ 4, his 3, and Courtney’s 4.67….come on now! Some of us can’t watch live because we have work and school!
Continuing on, the waves cleaned up a bit for Phil MacDonald -vs- Tiago Pires — Phil seemed to have more turns per wave, but it’s quality over quantity…Although he did find a nice cover up on one of his scoring waves. Then Tiago just kind of shoved it in his face by getting a bigger and better barrel, and received an 8.33, emerging victorious.
Aussie Ben Dunn took out Herman the German rookie Marlon Lipke in a sort of slow heat. Dunn was on his backside attack side, and picked off the better waves of the exchange. Marlon seemed to be just going for head dips, and not much else.
Big boy Kekoa Bacalso took down Hodei Collazo (???). Kekoa’s second wave of the heat, an 8.5 was nice and his turns were sharp, but he looked semi-sloppy constantly searching for a barrel. Okay, we get it. You can backside barrel-ride…and the wave does produce a barrel…but dragging your butt and praying one pitches over you every two seconds isn’t the way to do it (unless you’re in FL). Hodei (seriously, who is that??) smacked some quick backside snaps, but couldn’t get a bigger score to back up his 6.83. Overall, I’m glad Kekoa won, because he got gypped at Trestles against Kelly! Watch it, you’ll see: http://www.hurley.com/hurleypro/ondemand.cfm?round=Round%204
King Leonidas—I mean, Michel Bourez blew past Damien Fahrenfort. This was one of the more exciting heats of the day, with the waves looking nice as well. Damien put up a good effort, but ultimately, there can only be one Damien on tour….oh wait, there is only one on tour.
Heat 8 was Kai Otton (can I just call you Kotton?…good) -vs- Reubyn Ash (who? and from Great Britain??). Kotton was surfing quick like a cat receiving a 6.67. Then Reubyn just busts out this little 360 helicopter! ! …and then I watched the rest of the wave, and noticed a pretty pitiful end to a great start, and the judges still awarded him a 6.5. Kotton backed up his nice score with a 7.17, looking clean! Reubyn couldn’t catch up in the end, and note to Reubyn: it’s not as cool if you do the same thing twice in a row.
To watch any heats on demand courtesy of ASP World Tour & Billabong, go here: http://www.billabongpro.com/mundaka09/videos
The swell looks to be on the slow but steady increase in Spain for the next couple of days. Keep your eyes on the contest (local boys are in the next round!), and to catch up with CJ & Damo check them out here!: http://www.blog.thegoodss.com/
-Da Goods
