Day 1
The Box freesurf
Day 3
Day 4
Tuesday's action in the Prime Telstar Drug Aware Pro at Margaret River in Western Australia reinforced the importance of one of the basic fundamentals of surfing: the bottom turn.
If you think of all the classic bottom turn proponents in surfing today, one name would have to be near the top of the list, if not at the top. Mark Occhilupo's backhand bottom turn has legendary status and in today's round of 96, Occhilupo, who was a winner here back in 1985 and a wildcard entry in this years event, gave the appreciative crowd a lesson in surfing fundamentals.
In a building six-foot swell, heat eight became a battle between two former champions, Occhilupo and Josh Kerr, who won the 2010 event. These guys have very different styles but both used the bottom turn to advantage.
It was so good to do a backhand bottom turn out there," laughed Occhilupo after taking second and downing Shaun Joubert and Kai Barger, "I was looking for the rights, but I ended up catching a lot of lefts. Then on my last wave I felt as though I'd pulled a really good backhand bottom turn and set up the rest of the wave. Margaret's gives you lots of room to move and that's what I love about this place. There aren't many waves that allow you to do a turn like that besides here, Bells and J-Bay. It's so good to get off the bottom."
Josh Kerr, who won the heat, was looking for air sections.
"The wind was so strong and was perfect for airs but the sections weren't good for them," he said, post heat.
When asked how important it was have a good bottom turn he agreed with Occhilupo.
"Definitely important -- even on my first wave I'd gone around the section in a driving bottom turn and found I was going so fast I was going to myself, 'Whoa, what am I going to do with all this speed?' It's a fun wave to have space to do turns and not have to grovel like a lot of places we have to surf."
Kerr was also laughing about his heat with the veteran, Occhilupo. "It was so much fun out there with Occy, we were talking away and splitting the peak. I've never had a heat with him, unless you count the odd one during a Snapper Rocks club contest."
The building swell was being pushed onto the Margaret River reef by a strong southwesterly wind around 30 knots for most of the day. Most competitors were riding slightly bigger boards to get into the waves and cut through the chop.
Bede Durbidge had just won his heat and was packing his boards when Kelly Slater arrived at the beach. Slater asked what size board Bede had ridden. A 6' 5" was the answer, and Bede ventured that Kelly would need a longer stick out there.
Slater had two boards under his arms -- a 6'3" quad fin and a 5'9"quad with his famed "Nubster" trailer. When he finally walked down the wooden stairs to the beach he'd ignored Durbidge's advice. Firmly under his arm was the five-fin.
All I can say is that it worked a treat. Slater worked over every wave he caught, both lefts and rights, virtually pulling every move in the surfing manual, setting all his waves up with beautiful bottom turns. The only move he didn't pull off was a tube ride. He's leaving that for later in the week when the wind dies down and faces clean up.
While Slater had fun, the current world number one and hometown hero Taj Burrow had a shocker, but advanced.
"I just couldn't find the right waves," said Burrow later, "Margaret's does that to you. I just kept getting caught out of position and it's such a long paddle back out. I'd get a bad one, then on the long paddle back out, I'd be looking at all these good ones. And it was just annoying me because I wanted to be on one of those," he laughed, but I guess the bad heat is out of the way."
By all reports, today's conditions were supposed to be the worst all week. If you listen to the forecast experts, the event is going to score waves all week with Friday's sizzling prediction of 8-foot at 17 seconds and light offshore winds being the standout.
Today what stood out were those competitors who had a solid bottom turn as part of their repertoire and it all came down to basic surfing. The guys who are out of the event are off to enjoy the wineries, or free surfing at one of the numerous surf breaks along the rocky coastline that will be cranking by the end of this week.
TELSTRA DRUG AWARE PRO MEN'S ROUND OF 96 RESULTS:
HEAT 1: Owen Wright (AUS) 16.16, Joan Duru (FRA) 11.43, Jerome Forrest (AUS) 9.66, Alain Riou (PYF) 6.24
HEAT 2: Jay Quinn (NZL) 11.43, Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 11.16, Perth Standlick (AUS) 9.44, Maxime Huscenot (FRA) 9.10
HEAT 3: Tom Whitaker (AUS) 15.00, Messias Felix (BRA) 8.70, Alex Ribeiro (BRA) 7.57, Brett Simpson (USA) 5.73
HEAT 4: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.57, Gabe Kling (USA) 12.60, Jay Thompson (AUS) 11.30, Masatoshi Ohno (JPN) 8.10
HEAT 5: Damien Hobgood (USA) 14.53, Billy Stairmand (NZL) 12.27, Royden Bryson (ZAF) 9.90, Thomas Woods (AUS) 5.76
HEAT 6: Blake Thornton (AUS) 13.50, Hizunome Bettero (BRA) 12.00, Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 10.84, Flavio Nakagima (BRA) 7.56
HEAT 7: Dion Atkinson (AUS) 12.40, Jadson Andre (BRA) 10.17, Charlie Brown (BRA) 8.43, Vincent Duvignac (FRA) 7.43
HEAT 8: Josh Kerr (AUS) 15.00, Mark Occhilupo (AUS) 14.27, Shaun Joubert (ZAF) 9.57, Kai Barger (HAW) 8.67
HEAT 9: Bede Durbidge (AUS) 14.50, Nathan Yeomans (USA) 9.94, Hodei Collazo (EUK) 8.27, Yujiro Tsuji (JPN) 5.40
HEAT 10: Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 13.97, Mitch Crews (AUS) 13.67, Luke Davis (USA) 13.07, Andre Silva (BRA) 11.83
HEAT 11: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) 10.70, Olamana Eleogram (HAW) 9.96, Brandon Jackson (ZAF) 8.34, Jesse Mendes (BRA) 7.84
HEAT 12: Kelly Slater (USA) 16.60, Tom Innes (AUS) 10.50, Mitchel Coleborn (AUS) 5.93, Marc Lacomare (FRA) 4.97
HEAT 13: Heath Joske (AUS) 10.20, Taj Burrow (AUS) 8.23, Aritz Aranburu (EUK) 7.50, Luke Campbell (AUS) 4.27
HEAT 14: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 12.70, Charles Martin (GLP) 11.34, Thiago Camarao (BRA) 10.84, Tim Reyes (USA) 1.94
HEAT 15: Brent Dorrington (AUS) 13.46, Adam Melling (AUS) 12.67, Halley Batista (BRA) 10.66, Cory Lopez (USA) 9.87
HEAT 16: Kieren Perrow (AUS) 14.33, Granger Larsen (HAW) 13.33, Stu Kennedy (AUS) 10.74, Matt Banting (AUS) 9.83
HEAT 17: John John Florence (HAW) 16.13, Lincoln Taylor (AUS) 9.90, Wiggolly Dantas (BRA) 6.92, Dean Bowen (AUS) 4.10
HEAT 18: Jack Freestone (AUS) 13.03, CJ Hobgood (USA) 12.93, Nat Young (USA) 11.10, Kiron Jabour (HAW) 9.03
HEAT 19: Gony Zubizarreta (ESP) 12.33, Jonathan Gonzalez (CNY) 11.97, Travis Logie (ZAF) 11.43, Daniel Ross (AUS) 9.44
HEAT 20: Tomas Hermes (BRA) 6.70, Nic Muscroft (AUS) 6.50, Luke Cheadle (AUS) 6.20, Heitor Alves (BRA) 1.77