Quikie Pro

A missing superbank and brown water but still some high class surfing at the Quiksilver Pro. Round one of the men has been done and the women are all the way to the quarters.

Taj, Parko, Josh Kerr and Owen Wright all missed out in round one with Slater winning in the heat of the day. He was against Dane Reynolds and Kolohe Andino.

The event is on hold for a midday (local time) call today

QUIKSILVER PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Bede Durbidge (AUS) 14.50, Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 12.70, Taj Burrow (AUS) 11.94
Heat 2: Travis Logie (ZAF) 18.20, Adriano de Souza (BRA) 17.10, Dusty Payne (HAW) 12.07
Heat 3: John John Florence (HAW) 15.00, Kai Otton (AUS) 14.80, Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 12.40
Heat 4: Mick Fanning (AUS) 17.24, Willian Cardoso (BRA) 14.57, Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 12.10
Heat 5: Kelly Slater (USA) 16.04, Kolohe Andino (USA) 15.73, Dane Reynolds (USA) 12.34
Heat 6: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 17.76, Joel Parkinson (AUS) 17.73, Brent Dorrington (AUS) 15.37
Heat 7: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 15.67, Kieren Perrow (AUS) 14.97, Tiago Pires (PRT) 13.20
Heat 8: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 15.60, Nat Young (USA) 11.90, Josh Kerr (AUS) 10.13
Heat 9: Julian Wilson (AUS) 12.15, Adam Melling (AUS) 11.63, Damien Hobgood (USA) 11.40
Heat 10: Michel Bourez (PYF) 16.43, Owen Wright (AUS) 15.67, Filipe Toledo (BRA) 14.50
Heat 11: Brett Simpson (USA) 15.13, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 14.76, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 13.23
Heat 12: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 17.93, C.J. Hobgood (USA) 16.63, Glenn Hall (IRL) 15.07

QUIKSILVER PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Brent Dorrington (AUS)
Heat 2: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Dane Reynolds (USA)
Heat 3: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Willian Cardoso (BRA)
Heat 4: Josh Kerr (AUS) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 5: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Dusty Payne (HAW)
Heat 6: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Raoni Monteiro (BRA)
Heat 7: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Tiago Pires (PRT)
Heat 8: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Nat Young (USA)
Heat 9: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Adam Melling (AUS)
Heat 10: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. Filipe Toledo (BRA)
Heat 11: Kai Otton (AUS) vs. Glenn Hall (IRL)
Heat 12: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) vs. Kolohe Andino (USA)

ROXY PRO GOLD COAST QUARTERFINAL MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Tyler Wright (AUS) vs. Courtney Conlogue (USA)
Heat 2: Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) vs. Alana Blanchard (HAW)
Heat 3: Bianca Buitendag (ZAF vs. Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS)
Heat 4: Carissa Moore (HAW) vs. Pauline Ado (FRA)

Surf Movie Sunday

Double dose Sunday.

Lets start with a double dose of Parko

PARKO & THE ANIMAL from THEMADHUEYS on Vimeo.

A double dose of Mavericks GoPro action




A double dose of Aussie long boarders






A double dose of Hawaii






And finally a double dose of alternatives

Surf Movie Sunday

Nothing decent last week and slim pickings again. This is the best of a bad bunch.

Parko's world champion video





Super slow mo of Jaws. Makes it look easy enough for mortals to surf.




Now that Kelly is part of the Go-Pro team expect more of these videos.




Bit of Yank action.

Pipe

Parko in the water at the moment hoping to get through and closer to a world championship. He is up against Pipe local Kalani Chapman.

In the first three heats of round three all the highest seeded pros have lost, including John Florence and Julian Wilson. Slater takes on Billy Kemper in heat nine, while Taj has Yadin in heat 10 and Mick Fanning has the hard task of Shane Dorian in the last heat of the round.

Conditions are pretty good but a bit smaller than yesterday. There is some wind messing the lefts a little.

Pipe Masters

The Billabong Pipe Masters is on with round one in good conditions. Plenty of big sneaker sets landing on the competitors heads.

The double heat format is being used which gives plenty of action. The current rumour is that the swell will hang around and the event will run three days straight.

Parko and Slater don't surf in round one or two. From the WA point of view Taj misses rounds one and two while Yadin has won his heat. He'll meet Matt Wilkinson in round two.

The action is online and on FuelTV but you have to press the red button to get away from the UFC.

Taj wins

Taj Burrow as won the Coldwater Classic, beating Matt Wilkinson in the final. It's Taj's second win for the season.

Parko made the quarters and Slater round five which means it will all be decided at Pipe. Fanning has a slim chance but would need both of the others to drop out early and while he keeps going. My quick calculations have Slater currently leading on 48450, Parko 44700 and Fanning 38450. To guarantee win number 12 Slater would need to win one more heat than Parko. Parko would need to get at least ninth if he was to go out in the same round.

Lets hope for waves at Pipe.

Tricked

Looking at the surfcam first thing in the US morning it didn't look like there would be much surfing going on at Steamer Lane overnight but it cleaned up.

Round two and most of round three were done and resulted in the World Title will go to Pipeline, with Slater and Parko through to round four. However John Florence was knocked out of the race and Mick Fanning's chances took a kick with both losing in round two for 33rds.

Round one wasn't good for the top seeds and round two wasn't better. Round three was pretty bad as well.

Taj is still in the event and Yadin is in the first heat of the day.

O’NEILL COLDWATER CLASSIC ROUND 3 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Taj Burrow (AUS) 14.83 def. Jadson Andre (BRA) 12.17
Heat 2: Travis Logie (ZAF) 14.67 def. Adrian Buchan (AUS) 11.13
Heat 3: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 16.53 def. Taylor Knox (USA) 14.77
Heat 4: Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 11.10 def. Jordy Smith (ZAF) 10.23
Heat 5: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 13.33 def. Bede Durbidge (AUS) 11.30
Heat 6: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 15.63 def. Nat Young (USA) 12.43
Heat 7: Kelly Slater (USA) 15.84 def. Dusty Payne (HAW) 14.77
Heat 8: Michel Bourez (PYF) 12.40 def. Kai Otton (AUS) 5.27

O’NEILL COLDWATER CLASSIC ROUND 2 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Kelly Slater (USA) 11.20 def. Jason Collins (USA) 9.40
Heat 2: Jadson Andre (BRA) 14.10 def. Mick Fanning (AUS) 14.06
Heat 3: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 14.50 def. John John Florence (HAW) 8.66
Heat 4: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 13.43 def. Adam Melling (AUS) 11.50
Heat 5: Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 14.44 def. Julian Wilson (AUS) 13.67
Heat 6: Owen Wright (AUS) 10.63 def. Tiago Pires (PRT) 8.27
Heat 7: Damien Hobgood (USA) 15.50 def. Josh Kerr (AUS) 12.94
Heat 8: Jeremy Flores (FRA) 13.47 def. Kolohe Andino (USA) 12.53
Heat 9: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 18.33 def. Kieren Perrow (AUS) 12.60
Heat 10: C.J. Hobgood (USA) 12.17 def. Heitor Alves (BRA) 10.53
Heat 11: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 15.10 def. Miguel Pupo (BRA) 15.06
Heat 12: Bede Durbidge (AUS) 13.40 def. Brett Simpson (USA) 9.07

Coldwater Classic

The O'Neill Coldwater Classic at Steamer Lane has started in pretty decent surf. Taj has just won his round one heat and is only the second top seed to make it straight through to round three so far. Parko was the other one.

That means that the other three title contenders (Slater, Fanning and Florence) are into the elimination round two.

The webcast is at http://www.oneill.com/cwc/ and its live on FuelTV. Being in the US its late at night going into the early morning.

Finals day

Pretty clean conditions for the final day of the Rip Curl Pro Portugal.

Mick Fanning was taken down in round five, giving him a ninth and 2250 more points than Slater in this event. Parko met John John in the quarters and won. This gives JJ a fifth and 3450 points over Slater and 1200 over Fanning.

Parko will meet Gabriel Medina in the semis, with the other between Julian Wilson and the winner of the quarter in the water at the moment.

At this stage the Mick's ninth is a keeper, John John will have nothing lower than a fifth. Regardless of what happens from now on Parko will have nothing lower than a third.

My literally back of the envelope calculations tell me that Parko would have to win to overtake Kelly after dropping the worst two events to this stage.

Kelly Slater - 45 400
Parko - 3rd 43 500, 2nd 45 000, 1st 47 000
Fanning - 43 500
John Florence - 38 600

Kelly's two bad events (really three) only drop his raw total by a small amount compared to the others (especially Parko) who drop big points. His four finals and three wins are keeping him in the race against the consistent but not winning Parko. Looks like it might go down at Pipeline, hopefully in some decent waves.

Hold

The Rip Curl Pro in Portugal is burning through the waiting period. No consistent surf for a few days and now a massive storm is bering down on the contest site. The commentators are trying to talk it up but they are also trying to lay the foundations for a move to one of the back up venues where the wind will be side rather than onshore.

It's day 8 of 11 and they still have the bulk of round three to go. Even though it stays light for ages they still need a solid two days to run the event. It will be hard to squeeze out any extra time as the Cold Water Classic starts in the US on 1st November.

As usual Taj will be in the guinea pig first heat of whatever day they run. He always seems to end up going first and when the conditions are likely to be suspect he draws someone who can fluke a few waves and win. This time its Kolohe Andino who is desperate for any sort of result after not living up to his publicity so far. He is in danger of falling off the tour so will be a danger man for TB.

Yadin has Mick Fanning. The waves could be big and lean toward Mick because his poo stance isn't as suspect as in smaller waves. Parko will have to watch out for Dusty Payne and the rest of the heats are pretty even and could go either way depending on wave size and quality.

RIP CURL PRO PORTUGAL REMAINING ROUND 3 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 3: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Kolohe Andino (USA)
Heat 4: Josh Kerr (AUS) vs. Alejo Muniz (BRA)
Heat 5: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. C.J. Hobgood (USA)
Heat 6: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Dusty Payne (HAW)
Heat 7: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Raoni Monteiro (BRA)
Heat 8: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Michel Bourez (PYF)
Heat 9: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)
Heat 10: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Kieren Perrow (AUS)
Heat 11: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Bede Durbidge (AUS)
Heat 12: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Yadin Nicol (AUS)

Round two finally over

It seems to have been going for ever but the Quikie Pro in France has only just finished round two and then went on a break.

Taylor Knox continues his run beating Adriano De Souza and he'll take on young gun John Florence in the first heat of round three.Yadin Nichol is out as are both Hopgoods and Josh Kerr.


Taj takes on Kolohe Andino, who finally made it into the third round. Slater has Jadson Andre, Joel gets Pat Gudaskas but Mick Fanning has dangerman Dane Reynolds. A loss here would hurt his title run but not be fatal.

With five days left and nothing perfect on the forecast expect the event to be a bit of a luck fest.

Quik Pro France

The Quiksilver Pro France started two days ago in its usual iffy surf. Its a bit hard to get excited about a non-elimination round one held in close outs.

Parko was the only surprise losing to Dane Reynolds but he will have a decent shot in round two. Reynolds could be the fly in the ointment as he is likely to come up against one of the title contenders in round three.

It was a lay day yesterday and the next call will be early afternoon our time. You can watch it at the normal places.

QUIKSILVER PRO FRANCE ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Taj Burrow (AUS) 14.16, Kai Otton (AUS) 11.03, Taylor Knox (USA) 7.00
Heat 2: Jadson Andre (BRA) 9.04, Adriano De Souza (BRA) 8.70, Damien Hobgood (USA) 8.20
Heat 3: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 12.70, John John Florence (HAW) 11.67, Miguel Pupo (BRA) 6.86
Heat 4: Kelly Slater (USA) 12.06, Dusty Payne (HAW) 7.74, Tiago Pires (PRT) 4.16
Heat 5: Dane Reynolds (USA) 10.66, Joel Parkinson (AUS) 9.90, Bede Durbidge (AUS) 5.40
Heat 6: Mick Fanning (AUS) 14.50, Wiggolly Dantas (BRA) 12.10, Travis Logie (ZAF) 8.56
Heat 7: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 14.83, Kolohe Andino (USA) 12.97, Josh Kerr (AUS) 10.00
Heat 8: Brett Simpson (USA) 11.67, Yadin Nicol (AUS) 10.70, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 7.83,
Heat 9: Michel Bourez (PYF) 10.43, Owen Wright (AUS) 8.30, Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 5.77

REMAINING QUIKSILVER PRO FRANCE ROUND 1 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 10: Jordy Smith (ZAF), Heitor Alves (BRA), Adam Melling (AUS)
Heat 11: Julian Wilson (AUS), Adrian Buchan (AUS), Kieren Perrow (AUS)
Heat 12: Gabriel Medina (BRA), C.J. Hobgood (USA), Fredrick Patacchia (HAW)

Hurley burley

Slater's win at Trestles was his third title in a row, his 50th career win and continues his almost ridiculous winning streak there. He has moved up to third with four very winnable events to go in Europe, mainland US and Hawaii. If you drop the worst two results of the surfers Kelly is actually leading by 700 points. If he was to match or beat Parko and Mick for the rest of the season he would be the winner.

Taj dropped one spot to fall out of the top five with his fifth place finish. Yadin stayed out 27 and hadn't made it past round three this year.

The next event starts at the end of next week in France, followed two days later in Portugal.

Slater wins

Beating Parko in nice waves a few minutes ago.

Hurley Pro

Round one is over and it was a good day for the west Aussies with both TB and Yadin Nichol winning their heats.

The waves were nice little peaks made for throwing fins. Big airs were getting the big scores, especially  if they were no-handers. Seems that claiming an air was given a scoring bump as well.

Amongst the others most of the heats went as expected. Parko missed out and will take on Connor Coffin in round two. Coffin will be in with a chance if Parko isn't on his game. John Florence didn't surf well and will take on another wildcard. Owen Wright was just beaten by Yadin by less than half a point and will meet tour vet Taylor Knox. Knox is one of the few remaining power hackers so his future relies on what the judges are picking on the day.

I put some money on Julian Wilson so of course he lost badly and will have a difficult round two against Jadson Andre.

As usual the contest website is top notch with a good webcast (in the middle of the night here) and heat analyser heats on demand. Fuel TV is showing every heat live for those with Foxtel.

HURLEY PRO AT TRESTLES ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 14.30, Jadson Andre (BRA) 11.10, Brett Simpson (USA) 7.94
Heat 2: Taj Burrow (AUS) 16.00, Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 12.57, Alejo Muniz (BRA) 7.37
Heat 3: Kelly Slater (USA) 15.66, Tiago Pires (PRT) 10.90, Taylor Knox (USA) 8.10
Heat 4: Dusty Payne (USA) 12.47, Kai Otton (AUS) 12.00, John John Florence (HAW) 9.00
Heat 5: Bede Durbidge (AUS) 14.16, Joel Parkinson (AUS) 12.87, Evan Geiselman (USA) 12.50
Heat 6: Mick Fanning (AUS) 15.60, Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) 14.60, Conner Coffin (USA) 12.16
Heat 7: Yadin Nicol (AUS) 17.57, Owen Wright (AUS) 17.17, Miguel Pupo (BRA) 11.67
Heat 8: Josh Kerr (AUS) 13.20, Damien Hobgood (USA) 10.63, Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 8.00
Heat 9: Michel Bourez (PYF) 16.20, Kolohe Andino (AUS) 13.30, Jeremy Flores (PYF) 12.70
Heat 10: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 16.50, Adam Melling (AUS) 13.57, Julian Wilson (AUS) 9.66
Heat 11: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 16.30, Travis Logie (ZAF) 15.87, Heitor Alves (BRA) 13.83
Heat 12: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 16.90, C.J. Hobgood (USA) 16.17, Kieren Perrow (AUS) 8.20

UPCOMING HURLEY PRO AT TRESTLES ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Conner Coffin (USA)
Heat 2: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Evan Geiselman (USA)
Heat 3: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Taylor Knox (USA)
Heat 4: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 5: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Jadson Andre (BRA)
Heat 6: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Matt Wilkinson (AUS)
Heat 7: Heitor Alves (BRA) vs. Kolohe Andino (USA)
Heat 8: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Adam Melling (AUS)
Heat 9: Miguel Pupo (BRA) vs. Travis Logie (ZAF)
Heat 10: Brett Simpson (USA) vs. Kieren Perrow (AUS)
Heat 11: Alejo Muniz (BRA) vs. Fredrick Patacchia (HAW)
Heat 12: Tiago Pires (PRT) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)

Judge for yourself

Does claiming pay ?




Chopes is such a one dimensional wave that judging is so difficult. Every pit that someone makes is basically the same so winning is more pot luck that really beating someone. I don't think Fanning's waves were better or worse than Parko's but I much prefer Parko's smooth style to Mick's poo stance.
Chopes is a world class wave on it's day but is it a world class competition wave ? Especially when we move on to two more barrel riding contests before years end, Supertubos is Portugal and the real left hand tube riding test Pipeline.

Mick wins

Mick worked his way out of a combo with 4 minutes to go to beat Parko at Chopes.

As predicted the surfer making claims after each wave came out on top. Mick could have been Brazilian ! The super deep tubes helped as well !

Mick vs Joel

Joel just beat John Florence and will meet Mick Fanning in the final after a short rest.

The waves are nice but inconsistent. As usual with Teahupooo each ride is either a eight or a two so its anyones event.

Billabong Pro

Inconsistent waves for day two and round two. Most of the top ranked surfers got through with the exceptions being a rapidly fading Bede Durbridge and Jordy Smith, who would have been to big for the little tubes. Yadin Nichol also dropped out and adds another 33rd to his season.

Round three looks like this -

Heat 1: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Fredrick Patacchia (HAW)
Heat 2: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Adrian Buchan (AUS)
Heat 3: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)
Heat 4: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Miguel Pupo (BRA)
Heat 5: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Michel Bourez (PYF)
Heat 6: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Ricardo dos Santos (BRA)
Heat 7: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Taylor Knox (USA)
Heat 8: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Heitor Alves (BRA)
Heat 9: Josh Kerr (AUS) vs. Damien Hobgood (USA)
Heat 10: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Brett Simpson (USA)
Heat 11: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Alejo Muniz (BRA)
Heat 12: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Kieren Perrow (AUS)

Much will depend on the conditions but Mick Fanning and Joel need to look out. If it is big Taj and Adriano will have a tougher day.

Watch the highlights from the first two days and look for Josh Kerr's double barrel right on day one !

Live blogging

Taj has beaten Parko and moves into a semi against Gabriel Medina. With Slater still in the event this is a bit of a short term blow to Parko but nothing to get very stressed about.

Next heat is Julian Wilson and Owen Wright. Could be another cracker.