The final leg of the Australian trifecta got underway Wednesday in Victoria, Australia where the Rip Curl Pro is ripping at iconic Bells Beach. Considered the home of the longest-running professional surfing event in history, Bells Beach caps off the
The final leg of the Australian trifecta got underway Wednesday in Victoria, Australia where the Rip Curl Pro is ripping at iconic Bells Beach. Considered the home of the longest-running professional surfing event in history, Bells Beach caps off the trio of events down under that have gotten the 2014 world tour off to a very interesting start.
It was a lay day for the men, but the women began their first round of competition in non-elimination heats of three wahine apiece. Kauai’s two members of the Top 17, Malia Manuel and Alana Blanchard, have gotten off to different starts in 2014. Manuel has become one of the competitors looking to crash the top of the rankings and comes into this event ranked sixth in the World Championship Tour standings after a pair of Equal 5th place finishes at Snapper Rocks and Margaret River.
Blanchard has had some more difficulty in the first couple of events, falling in the second round of each. She enters Bells Beach tied for 16th in the world tour standings and will need to begin accumulating some better finishes in order to drop those low scores at the end of the year.
Wednesday’s opening heat featured Manuel, Oahu’s Alessa Quizon and California’s Courtney Conlogue. As is tradition, AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” blared over the speakers when that first heat got underway.
Bells Beach is historically difficult for “goofy footers,” or backhand surfers, which could make this event an even greater challenge for WCT rookie Quizon. It showed in the opening heat, despite her best efforts to be the most active surfer. Waves seemed to get away from Quizon, while Conlogue and Manuel were able to stay with their rides on their forehands and went blow for blow for a couple big exchanges. Each time it was Conlogue who got the slightly better result and took the heat win with a 15.00 two-wave total to Manuel’s 14.03. Conlogue will move straight into the third round while Manuel and Quizon will have to head to the elimination heats of round two.
The second heat featured Blanchard along with Oahu’s Coco Ho and Australian Sally Fitzgibbons, who won at Bells in 2012. It was slow going at the beginning, with Blanchard’s 2.67 ride sitting as the best score for the first 13 minutes of the heat. But Ho displayed a variety of maneuvers on a small wave for a 5.33 and then salvaged a few foamy sections for a 5.67 to take the lead.
Fitzgibbons was stylish as she glided to a 7.17 ride that covered plenty of ground and put her in position to steal the heat. Needing just a 3.83, she took a wave with just a minute remaining that didn’t allow for much flair, but her finishing move off the lip justified a 5.77 and the victory.
There were a pair of priority decisions for Blanchard that did not pan out as she would have hoped, which contributed to her lower total and moves her into the second round of head-to-head competition.
Kilauea’s Sebastian Zietz will be in the water with Australia’s Josh Kerr and Brazil’s Raoni Monteiro. Kerr is coming off a runner-up finish at the Drug Aware Pro Margaret River last week and sits in third place in the WCT men’s standings. Seabass hasn’t put up a big result just yet and is tied for 23rd, but there are plenty of opportunities left for him to move into a more comfortable position.
Event organizers will make a call for the men to get started at 11 a.m. today, which is 7 a.m. Thursday in Australia. For television coverage, see channel 250 or 1250 on Oceanic Time Warner. Live web coverage can be found at www.aspworldtour.com.
