2003 ASP/WCT BILLABONG PRO, JEFFREYS BAY: DAY FIVE

CJ soared his way into equal 9th. www.aspworldtour.com

SEMIS
The onshore that was expected to power through at lunchtime didn't materialize, and the surf remained good. Mike Parsons had to make the call. "We could have an epic swell in four days time, so it's a tough one, but the surfers want it to go, so it's gonna go."

In the first semi, Slater pushed his win rate over Taylor Knox to a healthy 88%. In rising conditions, he had the heat- bagged after just one wave. Muscling his way through a foamball take-off, Kelly launched into three of the most knee-buckling, hard-landing floaters of the event -- all on the same wave. The 9.57 gave him the four highest scoring waves of the contest (all 9.5+). Is that a record?

Semi Two was won in bizarre circumstances by Damien Hobgood. A few minutes into the heat Taj Burrow whipped around and made a frantic beeline for the beach, followed closely by two water photographers gesturing wildly to the tower about fin. Taj scurried onto the first dry rock he could find, waiting for the head judge to call off the heat.

With the speakers facing up the beach, he couldn1t hear the repeated call over the PA system that it was a whale. By the time his mates convinced him it was safe, 10 minutes were gone. He spent another 10 running up the beach and waiting in the gully for a lull. His heat was blown. Jelly-legged and clearly thrown off concentration, he was barely able to do move.

"Did you see that? Did you see that?" he protested in front of the tower afterwards, making triangular shapes with his fingers to back up his argument. "There's just no way that was a whale mate. Those guys shouldn't be out there right now. I'm telling you that wasn't a whale."

Judge Clyde Martin had a different theory. It was a triangular fin, as Taj had correctly pointed out. But the whale had rolled over to the side and it was the pectoral fin he had seen. Too bad.

FINAL
Here's the irony. It's near-perfect Supertubes. This is the world's finest righthand pointbreak, no? And the two guys contesting the final were both weaned on Floridian windslop.

Like his brother, Damien has the very peculiar habit of only getting to his feet halfway down the face of the wave. His first wave was a competitive 7.33, but he wasted valuable time milking it down to Tubes. The distant, behind-the-wave view of Tubes gives the judges little indication of how critical or tight a surfer1s moves are. He could have kicked out 50 yards earlier and logged the same score.

The Slater-Jet was still fuelled from his combo win over Knoxville, and he was in blistering form again. After nibbling at a few 2 pointers, he posted his sixth wave to make it onto the ASP 3top ten2 chart. Big punch-through reo's and monster floaters. Nobody gets as much carry on the roof as he does.

Hobgood absolutely butchered his second wave, flogging the lip several times for a miserly scored 8.5. No sooner had he brought himself back in the race, then Kelly clocked in another smoker, cracking a number of vertical hits and putting to work that much-debated S-carve.

The human angle-grinder wasn't done yet. With a minute left, Slater found another set wave that left even the commentators grasping for metaphors. "

Taj Burrow missed the final but left behind many fans. www.aspworldtour.com

An alien sent from Mars to teach us all how to surf," was the best Nick Williams could do from behind the mic. A "low scoring" 8.93 to end the contest for Slats.

I pressed Kelly on whether he thought he was surfing at a new level. "I don't think I've ever gotten such consistently high heat scores like that in my life. I'm not sure if anyone has, so yeah, I hope so."

This week Kelly Slater schooled 47 other surfers in art of riding pointbreaks. He was simply untouchable. Be warned, The King back. -- Jeremy Saville

Official 2003 Billabong Pro Results 1st Kelly Slater (USA) 18.36 – US$30,000
2nd Damien Hobgood (USA) 15.83 – US$16,000

Semifinals (1st>Final; 2nd=3rd receives US$10,000)
SF1: Kelly Slater (USA) 16.57 def. Taylor Knox (USA) 11.07
SF2: Damien Hobgood (USA) 14.0 def. Taj Burrow (Aus) 9.0

Quarterfinals (1st>Semifinals; 2nd=5th receives US$8,000)
QF1: Kelly Slater (USA) 18.44 def. Danny Wills (Aus) 13.74
QF2: Taylor Knox (USA) 14.1 def. CJ Hobgood (USA) 13.33
QF3: Taj Burrow (Aus) 16.9 def. Shea Lopez (USA) 15.1
QF4: Damien Hobgood (USA) 14.17 def. Dean Morrison (Aus) 13.54

Round Four (1st>Quarterfinals; 2nd=9th receives US$5,000)
H1: Kelly Slater (USA) 16.84 def. Mark Occhilupo (Aus) 16.5
H2: Danny Wills (Aus) 16.17 def. Kieren Perrow (Aus) 15.83
H3: CJ Hobgood (USA) 16.84 def. Luke Egan (Aus) 16.4
H4: Taylor Knox (USA) 12.83 def. Sean Holmes (SAfr) 12.33
H5: Shea Lopez (USA) 13.83 def. Joel Parkinson (Aus) 9.6
H6: Taj Burrow (Aus) 15.43 def. Guilherme Herdy (Brz) 10.67
H7: Damien Hobgood (USA) 16.17 def. Tom Whitaker (Aus) 14.57
H8: Dean Morrison (Aus) 15.0 def. Armando Daltro (Brz) 12.07

Remaining Round Three Heats (1st>Rnd4; 2nd=17th receives US$4,000)
H15: Armando Daltro (Brz) 14.5 def. Cory Lopez (USA) 13.23
H16: Dean Morrison (Aus) 13.17 def. Peterson Rosa (Brz) 11.5

Current ASP ratings after Billabong Pro, WCT #6 1. Andy Irons (Haw) 5,280-points
2. Kelly Slater (USA) 4,620
3. Kieren Perrow (USA) 4,416
4. Joel Parkinson (Aus) 4,356
5. Mick Fanning (Aus) 4,320
6. CJ Hobgood (USA) 4,140
7. Taj Burrow (Aus) 4,080
8. Cory Lopez (USA) 3,936
9. Dean Morrison (Aus) 3,852
10. Damien Hobgood (USA) 3,792

For complete stats go to www.aspworldtour.com

 

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