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KELLY SLATER WINS RIP CURL PRO BELLS
KS beats Fanning to claim his fourth bell; ties Mark Richards
Andy's back. Maybe. And Mick's back. Definitely. And Parko's back. Totally. Taj? He never went away. But Kelly? Hoo boy.
It's been trending this way for a long time, but for some reason, the Rip Curl Pro was the event where guys really started freesurfing in heats. And it was at Bells, of all places! Except it wasn't really Bells. Well, only for a day. In a sign of Rip Curl's continuing adventurousness, this event was held at four completely different waves. But this event wasn't about the conditions (or lack of them). It was about high performance.
If someone had told Dusty Payne he was trying to win a heat, not get a clip, he might have beaten Kelly on Wednesday. If someone had said the same thing to Bede in his quarter final today at Johanna, he might have too.
All event, guys raised eyebrows for not doing safety turns. And it wasn't just Dane...It was Gabriel Medina, Matt Wilkinson, Taj (of course), Dusty, Brett Simpson, etc. Then that alley-oop from Kelly in the final. But it wasn't just the one alley-oop -- they'd been thrown down all event. Simpo did a huge one at 13th Beach. Bobby Martinez did one this morning, then threw up maybe the biggest air of the contest, a huge lien grab against Parko.
But in the final, it seemed as if Kelly had ingested every trend that had been uncovered in this event, internalized all of them, then spat it all back out on two waves, giving everything his own, Kelly-esque tweak.
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