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BILLABONG PRO MUNDAKA: DAY 8
Fanning overtakes Parko in World Title Race after marathon day at Sopelana + Mundaka
The first call this morning at the Billabong Pro Mundaka was at 7:30am. One problem: it was still totally and utterly flipping dark. And with first light not for another 23 minutes -- and sunrise lagging half an hour after that -- the whole concept of an 8am start was a bit, well, premature. It was also raining, cold and onshore making it even more dark, miserable and thoroughly unwelcoming outside the snug Mundaka bungalows.
The swell had picked up overnight, but due to the high tide lasting all morning, the much-maligned back up spot of 'Slop'elana' eventually became the call for the second half of R1. Cue groans all round and the annual routine of getting lost en-route to Sloppies. Even though I've been to the extremely average beachy every year and it's right next to the massive city of Bilbao, the unhelpful local road signs and lack of map always end up with me and everyone else driving the wrong way down a country lane.
But we got there in the end. Took ten minutes to figure out the comp was going on down the east end of the beach (hidden behind a little cliff, it was!) but it was okay -- in a strong onshore, but pretty smackable, rainy way. People went through. I double-dropped three coffees back-to-back when I arrived, figuring it was going to run out pretty quick so wasn't really paying too much attention. Thankfully, the pain didn't last for long and a move back to the rivermouth of shattered dreams was called at lunchtime. A good call? I think so...
Onshore Mundaka is still pretty fun and the crumbly sections made for more of an air-show vibe that was good to see. Jeez, even Bede whacked out a little reverse to the mass "huh?" of the crowd. CJ punted through, Dane didn't, Bobby speared a satellite on his near earth orbiting alley-oop and then the thinkable happened: Parko got knocked.
Fellow Aussie Drew Courtney didn't try too hard, but their heat coincided with a bit of a lull and Parko just didn't look comfortable and had freesurfed earlier with his ankle taped. The niggling pin may be shooting his title dreams down in flames.
Mick Fanning was being more successful in the water at the same time -- the comp utilizing, as they were, the dizzying overlapping heat format. It means for less waves wasted and more action, but jeez it's hard to keep up with and is a nightmare for the judges and video dudes on a long wave like the 'Daka. But it does compress the time needed and seeing as swell is soon to be as rare as fresh unicorn poop, it made perfect sense.
There was a certain sense of 'did no-one think to give Drew the script?' but the ASP World Tour is not wrestling, and the best man in that 35-minutes definitely won. When GT grabbed Drew for his post heat interview he introduced himself thusly, "Hi, I'm GT I've never spoken to you before." Which you can take any way you like.
"The top seeds may be battling for the World Title, but we're battling for requalification so we're not giving anything away," Courtney said. "It's a super important event for me and I was stoked to get a couple of good waves under my belt out there. I'm feeling confident and looking forward to the next one."
After his win of another low-scoring heat, Fanning pulled the whole one-heat-at-a-time trick. "I'm not thinking about it (ASP World Title) at all," Fanning said. "It's just one heat. If you want to win the World Title, you have to win heats and that's all I'm working on. I've got a long way to go. It's unfortunate for Joel that he got another bad result, but he's still right there and it's going to come down to the wire."
The second half of the round wasn't that interesting apart from the drama queen himself -- Kelly. He nearly missed his heat, AGAIN, misjudging the time a tad and possibly topping Maurice Cole's 90-minute Hossegor to Mundaka driving record. If the new Gernika town bypass hadn't been built in the last year he would have missed it for sure.
He was uncertain to start as late as this morning due to a meniscus knee injury picked up playing golf in Scotland last weekend -- four daily rounds of 20km hiking following a little ball is not good for your knees when you're not used to it -- but it didn't phase him, and he blazed passed Jihad with the highest heat score of the day by two clear points. You have to feel for Jihad, as he surfed a blinder and would've won every other heat in R2 -- except for Bobby's -- with his 15.30.
Post-heat Kelly, spent an age talking to GT, signing autographs and hanging out with the kids. Which I guess is a little bit of a 'sorry' for the whole 'Rebel Tour/trying to destroy the organization which has given him so much' thing... Allegedly.
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October 12, 2009
