Mick wins

Mick Fanning has just beaten Kelly Slater by a combo score in the final of the Quiksilver Pro in France. The swell had jacked with the tide and it was a solid double overhead breaking onto a shallow bank. Looking at the waves you can see how the French invented the guilotine !!!

Slater pulled off wave of the event in the semis. After taking off under the lip and his board sliding tail first down the face the olny people that thought he had made it were Kelly and the cameraman. Ten points and no claim.






Mick lucked into two surfable waves but took a massive wave on the head and broke his legrope. He deserved the scores he got, especially his last wave but I have two complaints, Mick claims like a Brazillian and has the worst poo stance on the CT.

Mick will go to third, Kelly will stay at number one but with a larger buffer over Jordy. However when you consider that the worst two events are dropped (and there are three left) Kelly pulls away. On my adjusted scores he is 42500 (with his worst two results a 9th and 17th leaving nothing lower than 3rd), Jordy 33750 (drops a 17th and a 5th leaving three 5th, a second and a win), Mick 32000 (dropping 9ths but keeping two 9th in his score), Taj 30000 (having to hold a 17th in his score line) and Dane 28500 (dropping 17th and a 9th but having nothing higher than third). Kelly and Jordy can both afford to have another bad day, especially Jordy whose second lowest score is a 9th but Taj must make finals and hope the others bomb.

Next event is the Rip Curl in Portugal on Thursday. Current rumour is that there will be swell from week one. Supertubes is much like France - closeouts with the odd epic tube, expect plenty of claims. This is the replacement event for Mundacca which has failed to deliver for the last few years.