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BILLABONG PIPELINE MASTERS: DAY ONE
Pumping surf greets first rounds; usual suspects advance, with a couple big surprises
Sometimes, stories write themselves. But mostly, you gotta wait around and pay attention and see what actually happens. Like at the Eddie for example, everyone figured Kelly had the thing on lockdown -- till Greg Long went nutso in the last heat of the day and won the thing.
Similar thing happened today, funnily enough.
Story-wise, there was the Irons brothers + Dorian getting shacked silly and advancing (which could've written itself), Jon Jon Florence and Flynn Novak flying the Wildcard flag (ditto) and Sunny Garcia being late for his heat and replacement Big Islander Torrey Meister blowing up (which was damn dramatic, as Sunny's poised to take the Vans Triple Crown.)
But the real story of the today -- one of the highest-scoring heats of the ASP year, in fact -- came straight out of left field at the very end of the day. Two dudes who, no offense, we never in a million years would have picked as Pipe Master types: Aussie flyboy Josh Kerr and Frenchman ASP bottom-dweller Miki Picon.
After 22 heats and seven and a half hours on the beach, folks were packing up or paddling out after watching Shane Dorian take out Tiago Pires as the swell pulsed. Kerrzy comboed Miki in the first few minutes, which wasn't unpredictable. Big deal, really: Miki squeaked by Manoa in R1 with a 10.5 and it seemed like this was going to be the Frenchman's last WCT heat.
But right around 3:45pm, the unwritten part of the story happened.
An eight-foot a-frame swung in. Miki Picon was deep on the right. He swung around under the lip and freefell into the maw, holding his line through the belly of the beast and came out with the spit. The whole beach claimed it for him. Your humble correspondent and those nearby called it a perfect ten, but the judges may have been as surprised as everyone else and gave the wave a 9.93.
"Luck, maybe," someone nearby said. "Could have happened to anyone." Ehhhh...turns out, not so much. About three minutes later, Picon was back out in position and dropped in behind another perfect Backdoor peak and drew another perfect line through the bowl: 8.83.
As an exclamation point, a few minutes later ANOTHER perfect Backdoor wave swung in. (Unlike the rest of the world, the surf often gets better at Pipe as the day goes on.) Picon was deep AGAIN. And swung underneath the thing and got shacked across the whole reef ONE MORE TIME. The crowd -- including your humble correspondent -- is very happy it stuck around.
Keep in mind this wasn't a one-sided affair, either. Kerrzy, fighting for his '10 WCT qualification, snagged his own crazy out-with-the-spit Backdoor pit for a 9.4. But the Aussie ended up comboed -- even with the big score -- and ended up losing -- with the day's third highest heat score, no less.
"That was the heat of my life," Miki said understandably afterwards, and the rest of the beach agreed.
Tomorrow's call will be at 6:30am local time, for a possible 8am start. With the overlapping format, this thing could get wrapped up in a day and a half. See below for Surfline's official forecast.
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December 11, 2009
