Those stylish retro longboarders hit up Malibu, California’s Surfrider Beach on September 9-10, 2011 for the first SoCal stop of the Vans Joel Tudor Duct Tape Invitational. Not surprisingly, first place went to Alex Knost.
After whittling the initial 16 down to the four finalists, Alex Knost took home $4,000 for first place, Justin Quintal $3,000 for second, Christian Wach $2,000 for third and Harrison Roach pocketed $1,000 for fourth spot. Knost’s win in Malibu follows a first place finish in the Duct Tape Invitational in Santa Cruz earlier this year.
The final between Kelly Slater and Owen Wright was the perfect ending to an amazing week at the Quiksilver Pro New York. The waves were a miracle, the surfing was devine, and Owen Wright found redemption (and $300,000 in cash) in his second consecutive final with the 10-time World Champion.
On the podium Wright was understandably thankful:
I’m just lapping it up right now,” Wright said. “I’ve always wanted to be in Final with Kelly (Slater) and last week at Teahupo’o was great. I think Kelly is ready for payback already. Thank you Long Beach, how good is this? Look at these waves! Thanks to Quiksilver, we’ve been looked after all week and they made it really easy for us and thanks for the $300,000. Thanks to my coach Dean Davies, it’s been up and down and we’ve worked towards a win and it means a lot. Thanks to my friends and family at home. I’ve been getting messages from them and my Dad, I wish he was here, but another day. Thanks heaps, I really appreciate the support.”
New York proved it has waves equal to any in the world and the fans may just be the best on the tour. For the official word from the ASP follow the jump. [click to continue…]
Welcome to the new world of competition surfing: power surfing has finally been laughed out of the water by the air era. At least that’s how it looked today (September 8, 2011) at the Quiksilver Pro New York as Josh Kerr and Owen Wright schooled the field with some of the most amazing skate-inspired contest surfing every seen.
Rarely have the old and new school be so shockingly contrasted as when Owen Wright went up against CJ Hobgood in Round 3. Hobgood needed to win the heat to stay on tour and surfed as well as he could. But it was obvious his old 2001 World Championship winning ways just weren’t enough as Wright blasted numerous four and five foot airs all around him. To Wright it was another heat to win and to CJ Hobgood it was the end of the World Tour road.
“At the end of it, I don’t want to be known as the 2001 World Champion,” Hobgood said. “I want to be known as a guy that loved Jesus and loved everyone and had fun and that’s it. It’s not a sad day for me. The waves are pumping and Owen went mad in that heat. Everything happens for a reason and I’m enjoying the beautiful day here today. It’s just awesome to be a part of.”
In his Round 4 heat against Kelly Slater and Jadson Andre, Josh Kerr blasted an alley-oop with an backside varial for 9.57 and then followed it up with an alley-oop for a 9.70. Done. He was over the moon.
“I can’t believe it just happened like that,” Kerr said. “I didn’t expect to make that varial and when I did I thought, ‘it’s time to go now.’ Then I got one straight after it. I couldn’t have planned it any better. The fans are really cool and it’s great to be in New York with everyone screaming, it’s great. I definitely gained confidence from that heat. I’ve never beaten Kelly (Slater) and I’m just so stoked right now.”
For the quarter final line up, official word from the ASP and all the heat results follow the jump. [click to continue…]
Tonight, as the kick-off for the Joel Tudor Duct Tape Invitational being held tomorrow and Saturday (September 9-10, 2011) at Malibu’s Surfrider beach, Joel Tudor and other invitees will be live on Stickam starting at 7 PM PDT.
Want to ask Joel or any of his guest a question and have it answered live? Tune in to http://www.stickam.com/vans1966 and you might even get some fighting tips.
Directly following his round two, heat four win over Bede Durbidge in the Quiksilver Pro New YorkBobby Martinez used his winner interview to speak his mind. Saying he has been a vocal critic of the ASP’s one world rankings in recent months would be an understatement and today Bobby made the following comments on the live webcast:
“First of all, I’d like to say (an the ASP are going to fine me) ‘cuz I don’t want to be a part of this fucking dumb wannabe tennis tour. All these pro surfers want to be tennis players. They want to do a halfway cutoff. How the fuck is somebody who’s not even competing against our caliber of surfers ahead of 100 of us on the one world ratings. They’ve never been here. They’ve never fucking made the right to surf against us, but now we’re ranked upon them. Come on now. That’s Bullshit. That’s why I ain’t going to these stupid contests no more. This is my last one because FTW, my sponsors is here and I just tell it like it is. This is my last one and I don’t like tennis. I don’t like the tour… Who gives a fuck? You know what I mean?”
Following this statement, the ASP invoked Article 151 from the official rule book to disqualify Martinez from the Quiksilver New York Pro. The rule states that “All Surfers, shall not AT ANY TIME damage the image of the sport of surfing.” If they do the ASP reserves the right to do pretty much anything they want. And since damaging the image of the sport is as vague as a rule can get, Article 151 can be easily used in almost any situation.
Without going into how unlikely it would be for the ASP to do something similar to a surfer who is sponsored by one of the major labels, or the surfers who have “damaged the image of surfing” in much more serious ways without being cited, Martinez probably could have gotten his point across without getting DQ’d. That said, he did it his way and it may go down as one of the best post contest interviews ever.
Follow the jump for the official correspondence from the ASP to Bobby Martinez. [click to continue…]
To those who thought the Quiksilver Pro New York would be a dismal, flat, failure this photo of Josh Kerr with his tail four feet out over Long Beach in round 1 is about as big a “I told you so” as Quiksilver’s Bob McKnight could have asked for. And with hurricane Katia powered surf set to build through Thursday it looks like New York could see some epic ASP World tour action after all.
Other than the waves there weren’t many surprises. Follow the jump for the full report.
This morning we sent out a mildly insulting tweet to let our followers know that the Quiksilver Pro New York had indeed kicked off with round one action. We mentioned that the waves were what “one would expect in New York.”
We were kind of expecting some of our East Coast followers to be pissed. But no. As only New Yorkers can do they fell all over themselves explaining how todays waves were really good and that it’s normally much, much worse. @philoSURFical went as far as calling us “wave spoiled cupcakes.” Okay, NYC surfers. You win. You have the worst waves in the world.
Luckily for all of us, this week has been blessed by Hurricane Katia (which is backing off a little, but still a Category 3) meaning the waves will likely be truly world class great for the finals later in the week.
The day after Irene stormed through New Jersey (August 28, 2011) a few Belmar Beach surfers decided that they couldn’t just watch all those waves go by unridden so they did what any surf starved Jersey boys would do: they made a run for it.
Laura Enever, Tyler Wright, and the girls roll up and send the boys packing in the short film LunchBreak by Fran Derham, according to a story in the Tweed Daily News.
“First Love gave us the idea to make a more drama-based film. It’s a four-minute short film, normally in surfing films you don’t get many story lines. It’s just music video after music video.” . . Ms Derham said the film will hopefully appeal to a mainstream audience and not just to the surfing elite.
Has a bit of an outsider feel, but definitely worth checking out.
The massive swell that hit Southern California over Labor Day weekend have already claimed the life of one surfer. Russ Yamada, 42, of Torrence, California was reportedly found “unresponsive near his surfboard” in the water at San Onofre at approximately 4:35 PM on Friday, September 3, 2011, according to a story in the North County Times.
He was taken to Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in San Clemente and declared dead. Waves up to about 8 feet were breaking on southwest-facing beaches yesterday.
Our thoughts are with Yamada’s family and friends.
