For four years, Kelly Slater eyed from afar as Jamie O’Brien and John John Florence dominated the Volcom Pipe Pro. This year he decided to get in on the act. Apparently perfect winter Pipe with just three other paddlers in
For four years, Kelly Slater eyed from afar as Jamie O’Brien and John John Florence dominated the Volcom Pipe Pro. This year he decided to get in on the act. Apparently perfect winter Pipe with just three other paddlers in the lineup was too good to pass up.
Slater won his first Volcom Pipe Pro in typical fashion on Wednesday, as the final day of action provided epic Pipeline conditions for most of the morning before getting trickier in the late rounds. In the fifth annual running of the event, Slater added his name to what will surely become a prestigious list in years to come. O’Brien won the inaugural event and Florence has won the past three, but was eliminated in stunning fashion in his Round of 64 heat on Monday.
As a 5-Star Qualifying Series event, those less accomplished than Slater – which is basically everyone else on the planet – were after rating points to become World Tour competitors, as well as a piece of the $130,000 prize pool. Slater was there to follow up the Pipe Masters championship he notched to end the 2013 ASP World Tour season. He again showed why he is considered the wave’s preeminent surfer. He tallied the four best wave scores of the event – one of which didn’t even count in his two best of the heat – and six of the top eight.
In the final, Slater went up against Oahu’s Mason Ho, who had probably been the best performer of the day other than the 11-time world champion, as well as Brazilians Wiggolly Dantas and Adriano de Souza. In the blink of an eye, Slater had put the pressure on his opponents. Just over two minutes into the heat, he found one of those waves that always seems to find him in competitive situations and rode it to a 9.53 score. With that on the board, he added a 6.17 four minutes later. The 15.70 total was anything but safe, but it put the other three in a situation where they knew they’d all be battling for the same big-score opportunities.
A dry spell in the heat kept everyone at bay until de Souza and Dantas each put up eight-point rides in the final couple minutes. Despite the breath of life those scores allowed, neither was able to gain another score to propel them past Slater. Dantas ended up in second with a 13.77, Ho took third with an 11.50 and de Souza was fourth with a 10.70.
The win for Slater came just six days before he turns 42 years old on Tuesday. With his 66th Association of Surfing Professionals victory, he didn’t show any signs of slowing down. His remarkable career appears to, if anything, be gaining steam. That’s just not something that happens in sports, but his constant desire to improve and take on more challenges has elevated Slater into the short list of greatest athletes in the world.
Maui’s Olamana Eleogram was a standout through most of the event, but he suffered a gruesome fall in the quarterfinals. As he got clipped by the lip of a big barrel, his board hit and broke his leg, according to the ASP. Eleogram had the fourth-highest heat total of the event, notching an 18.00 in the Round of 32, including a 9.30.
Hawaii surfers Dusty Payne and Kiron Jabour each earned Equal 5th place finishes, while Hawaii’s Torrey Meister and Australia’s Mitch Coleborn also reached the semifinals and took Equal 7th. Meister and Coleborn were each throwing themselves at Pipeline all day long, seeming to have no concern for their physical well-being along the way.
Hawaii surfers were looking for automatic entry into the year-end Pipe Masters, the final jewel of the annual Triple Crown. The top eight receive that honor. Ho, Payne, Jabour, Meister, Eleogram, Kaito Kino, O’Brien, Kalani David and Fred Patacchia were the top nine and all reached the Round of 32, with some equal finishes towards the bottom of that list. Keanu Asing, Dylan Goodale, Makai McNamara, Billy Kemper, Ezekiel Lau, Kai Barger, Hank Gaskell and Reef McIntosh all took Equal 33rd, while Dege O’Connell, Joel Centeio, Ian Gentil, Alex Smith, Florence, Mikey Bruneau, Makuakai Rothman and Pancho Sullivan were also Hawaii surfers to make the Round of 64, taking Equal 49th. There was no official word from the ASP as to who will wind up receiving those automatic local seeds.
‘My Thoughts Exactly’ appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in The Garden Island. Email David Simon your comments or questions to dsimon@thegardenisland.com. Follow David on Twitter @SimonTGI.
