{"id":37427,"date":"2012-10-31T21:13:52","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T04:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=37427"},"modified":"2012-10-31T21:22:10","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T04:22:10","slug":"nat-young-wins-cold-water-wild-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=37427","title":{"rendered":"Nat Young Wins Cold Water Wild Card"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Young<\/a><\/p>\n

Jason \u201cRatboy\u201d Collins<\/strong> already had one of the wild cards (by invitation<\/a><\/strong>) for the 2012 O’Neill Cold Water Classic<\/a><\/strong> and now the other goes to Santa Cruz’s Nat Young<\/strong> after he battled his way through the today’s trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was going to be tough in the local trials,\u201d Young said. \u201cWe have so many good surfers up here and everyone is capable of doing well and getting big scores. It was a long day and I\u2019m really stoked.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This win puts Young right into the thick of it as he’ll meet Kelly Slater<\/strong> and Kolohe Andino<\/strong> in Round 1. The waiting period officially starts tomorrow (Novermber 2, 2012). For the official word from the ASP follow the jump.SANTA CRUZ, California\/USA (Wednesday, October 31, 2012) \u2013 Nat Young (Santa Cruz, CA), 21, has won the O\u2019Neill Coldwater Classic local trials, earning a berth in to the ASP WCT main event.<\/p>\n

Young topped an impressive list of both local legends and global standouts to take out the trials victory and combined his intimate knowledge of Steamer Lane and his lethal backhand attack to earn the final wildcard spot in the main event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was going to be tough in the local trials,\u201d Young said. \u201cWe have so many good surfers up here and everyone is capable of doing well and getting big scores. It was a long day and I\u2019m really stoked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young\u2019s trials win puts him up against 11-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater (USA), 40, and ASP WCT Rookie Kolohe Andino (USA), 18, in Round 1 of the O\u2019Neill Cold Water Classic and the Santa Cruz native is thrilled to take on his childhood hero and the progressive up-and-comer in his first ASP WCT appearance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m against Kelly (Slater), so to be able to surf against my hero at my home break in my first WCT, it\u2019s pretty special,\u201d Young said. \u201cYou can\u2019t really ask for much more than that. I feel like local knowledge plays a big role out there. Picking the right waves is really important, and I think it will play in to my favor, but I\u2019m surfing against Kelly Slater and Kolohe (Andino), so I\u2019m going to need more than local knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young, current No. 20 on the ASP World Ranking, feels the wildcard spot in to this year\u2019s O\u2019Neill Coldwater Classic is the perfect initiation in to his potential rookie season on the ASP WCT for 2013, but was still guarded in claiming his spot among next year\u2019s elite despite the strong odds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cool to be able to surf against these guys and hopefully get a little taste of it,\u201d Young said. \u201cI\u2019m going to try my hardest and do what I normally do out there. I\u2019m going to try and make as many rounds as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The O\u2019Neill Coldwater Classic holds a waiting period from November 1 through 11, 2012 and is webcast LIVE via www.oneill.com\/cwc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason \u201cRatboy\u201d Collins already had one of the wild cards (by invitation) for the 2012 O’Neill Cold Water Classic and now the other goes to Santa Cruz’s Nat Young after he battled his way through the today’s trials. \u201cI knew it was going to be tough in the local trials,\u201d Young said. \u201cWe have so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37433,"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37427\/revisions\/37433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}