BIG WEST SWELL BOMBARDS ROUND TWO AT TEAHUPOO
TEAHUPOO (Cheo-pu) edged towards its dangerous best today as the Billabong Pro Tahiti continued its march hunting a result, with a new west swell kicking in for the sudden death round two heats of the Foster’s Men’s World Tour event. Solid 2m (4-6’++) slabs of water, with some bomb sets from the west, saw conditions become critical on the end section as surfers tried to escape from the wrapping barrel.
As usual the Foster’s Men’s World Tour Top 45 matched the spectacular waves with the commitment and skill that you expect from the world’s best. It was an awesome Teahupoo day and the best is yet to come, with a fresh south-west swell pushing 3m expected for the final two days of competition.
The round two heroes were many and varied in the challenging conditions, but one of the undisputed kings of this incredible wave, Cory Lopez, was the day’s most consistently brilliant performer.
There’s not a whole lot to Florida’s 5’10”150lb younger version of the Lopez brothers, in fact you might even call him a bit on the skinny side, but for what he lacks in meat and mass, he makes up for with heart beat and bravado.
Bagging the enviable scores of 9.7 and 9.23 in the first four minutes of his round two heat of the Billabong Pro Tahiti against Toby ‘Murderer’ Martin, Cory continued his ride further into the ASP’s pro surfing history books as the man to beat in Teahupoo’s chunderous caverns. Yes, we call his opponent Murderer, or Murdz, for the chilling gazes he is capable of, but today, sorry, Dee Why’s Murdz got murdered.
With eight minutes remaining Lopez added insult to injury throwing away his 9.23 after an unbelievably deep, long and critical run along the reef, coming out after the fire-hydrant wave spit. He scored a 9.93 to amass a heat score of 19.63, not just the highest of the day and the event so far, but just 0.3 from the record of the highest ever two-wave heat score in ASP annals.
Lopez also went back to back with his elder brother Shea who won the preceding heat in the dying seconds of his showdown with Australia’s Richie Lovett. The Lopez bras are on a roll.
“I took the momentum off my brother’s win,” said Cory. “I’m stoked! I guess I just got lucky starting off the heat with two nines so quickly”.
“It’s perfect out there, and you’ve just got to know which ones to pick, and luckily I picked a couple of good ones. The 9.93 finish was pretty unreal. The wave just bottomed out and drained perfectly off the reef”.
“A lot of the bigger ones haven’t been that hollow, but that one hit the reef perfectly, and held up, and held up, and hit the inside shelf and drained really square. It was perfect and I just came right out.”
The highest wave score of the day went down in the last heat of the day as Brazil’s Neco Padaratz overcame his phobias of nearly drowning here five years ago and charged like he wanted to drown today. He and Australia’s young rookie Bede Durbidge had an exceptional heat as the swell relentlessly stormed through as Sunday’s sunset approached.
Their exchange started with Durbidge logging an 8.3, but Padaratz went one better on the wave behind to score 8.83, followed by a back-up mid-six wave. He then lost priority taking a west peak that didn’t pitch a barrel. Bede then duplicated Padaratz blunder, but got out of the wave quick enough to get back to the take-off zone and grab priority.
Durbidge needed a 7.5, but came up short with a 7.43 on his next wave, Neco inheriting priority. The firey Brazilian missed the first wave of the next set and handed priority back to the rookie, who scored an 8.07 leaving Padaratz hunting a high score, but again holding the all important joker card of priority.
Driven like the maniac he can be, Padaratz’s chance came as one of the biggest waves of the day stormed in amongst the huge flotilla of craft in the channel. Padaratz turned and stroked into the monster, dropping incredibly late, almost with the pitching lip. A split second after he landed at the bottom of the threatening wall, the guillotine lip shaved his curly locks by millimetres, adding drama for all.
He pulled up with perfect positioning and timing to park himself in the spiralling pit and charged through the first section, but he was late for the next section and disappeared from view, looking to be impossibly deep as the wave clicked up a gear. The crowd in the channel collectively sighed, but seconds later the talented natural footer charged from the deep groins of the incredible wave.
Padaratz got five ten-point scores across the board, and the 2005 Billabong Pro Tahiti had its first perfect score, leaving Durbidge solidly comboed. Unperturbed, the young Stradbroke Island surfer racked up 9.30 on his final wave a minute before the final hooter, to break the double figures he needed, but it obviously wasn’t enough to deny the Brazilian his right to round three.
