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Wilson steps up the heat, Slater stumbles and a surf mag editor crosses over to the Dark Side. |
| 21/10/2012 |
Who Blew Up?
Julian Wilson. Julian finally snagged one in the big leagues with his victory over Gabriel Medina at The Rip Curl Pro in Penich Portugal. This will do wonders for Julian as it will make him feel as if he really belongs in the big league. He also jumps 6 places up the rankings to number 6 and is now knocking on the door of the magic top 5 rating. With his confidence up we wouldn’t be surprised to see him take some more major scalps at Steamer Lane.
Joel Parkinson. With his 3rd place finish, Joel maintains his lead in the world rankings, but he is going to have to win at least one of the next 2 events to win the title and do really well in the other one to seal the deal. This is Joel’s defining moment, no question. It will never be this ‘easy’ to get himself in striking distance again.
John-John Florence. Forget the cliched responses from Jordy and Kelly about having fun, John-John just embodies all that is fun about surfing and certainly seems to be the guy on tour having the most of it. His contract with O’Neill expires next year and it is expected that he will rake in a cool US$4M/year by the time the ink dries on his new contract. How’s that, you are 19 years old, you live at Pipeline, surf your brains out everyday and you are earning US$4M/year....
Who Blew it?
Kelly Slater. Kelly’s round 3 loss was one one of those rare moments when the elements actually conspired against him. To be fair to Slater there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He got skunked good and proper and couldn’t buy a wave out there if he tried. In his post heat interview he was frustrated but also philosophical. “It’s not the end of the world,” Slater said. “Nobody died, I just lost a heat. It’s a bummer for me, but it’s just the way it is.” All this does for us is make the year end that much more exciting.
Mick Fanning. Mick needed to win this event to get his mojo and his world title aspirations back on track and because of Kelly’s early exit it was an opportunity to jump up the ratings. His 9th place finish doesn’t really put the screws on Slater because even though his sits a ball hair behind Slater (200 points) Steamer Lane is an unknown for all of them and then no one has a win ratio at Pipe like Kelly and then there is also a rampant John-John to deal with... We thinks Mick has left it too late!
John McCarthy. Suffering from a neck injury that has kept him out of the water for the better part of a month, John finally cracked and was seen drifting about the Durban beachfront backline on an SUP as he finally crossed over to the dark side in his desperation to ride a wave again. Apart from being subjected to a torrent of a abuse as he wobbled past the North Beach, New Pier and Wedge lineups en route to join the kooks at Ushaka his ultimate humiliation came on his way back in when trying to catch a wave. He missed it, was caught inside, snapped the (borrowed) SUP in half and was relegated to doing the walk of shame past Durban Surf Lifesaving Club with 2 X 5’2’s and a paddle. |
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| Posted by Brian on the 22/10/2012 07:59 |
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| Posted by Mark on the 22/10/2012 09:11 |
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| Posted by slightly stoopid on the 22/10/2012 09:14 |
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| Posted by SH!thead on the 22/10/2012 09:35 |
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| Posted by Black on the 22/10/2012 09:37 |
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| Posted by Black on the 22/10/2012 09:37 |
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| Posted by warwick h on the 22/10/2012 09:54 |
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| Posted by SUP Kook on the 22/10/2012 12:59 |
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| Posted by ann wright on the 22/10/2012 13:04 |
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| Posted by Positive Vibe on the 26/10/2012 08:42 |
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| Posted by Katia on the 07/12/2012 08:21 |
