Come feel the familiar aching of tension at the Drug Aware Margaret River Pro!
What a cut-throat savage Taj Burrow is. Did you see the way the almost 38-year-old twanged with excitement in the opening heat of the Margaret River Pro, the one that’s drug aware?
If you missed it, you may watch the oddly electric marvel here. Jeremy Flores experienced a few moments of transient joy in the heat, Alex Ribeiro not so many. Both were left to make anguished sounds as they trudged back to the carpark.
Italo Ferreira took to the air like a frisbee!
Julian Wilson stomped a raucous flamenco and the judges duly nibbled at his earlobes.
Matt Wilkinson might appear to be enjoying an interior chuckle every time he’s interviewed, but in the water he’s an alley fighter. His glare is pure homicide. He’ll tear someone’s fucking head off if he even gets close to a title!
Matt Banting is a very good surfer whose style resembles an overly courteous waiter constantly bending over your table inquiring, in annoying tones, if everything is alright. He was sent to the showers by Nat Young despite an almost-nine, one of the highest scores of the day.
Do you think Gabriel Medina writes notes on pink paper and encloses them in perfumed envelopes? But who can ignore Gabriel’s bludgeon strokes and the way he blitzed the Australian and the historically significant Italian?
Who will dagger a fingernail down our spines tomorrow? Let’s watch Dawn Patrol at seven am!
Drug Aware Margaret River Pro Men’s Round 1 Results:
Heat 1: Taj Burrow (AUS) 16.34, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 16.10, Alex Ribeiro (BRA) 5.43
Heat 2: Julian Wilson (AUS) 17.10, Adam Melling (AUS) 15.47, Kai Otton (AUS) 12.06
Heat 3: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 12.67, Stuart Kennedy (AUS) 9.17, Dusty Payne (HAW) 7.60
Heat 4: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 15.67, Kanoa Igarashi (USA) 14.54, Jack Robinson (AUS) 9.70
Heat 5: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 16.70, Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 12.27, Davey Cathels (AUS) 10.16
Heat 6: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 13.10, Jacob Willcox (AUS) 12.40, Keanu Asing (HAW) 10.64
Heat 7: Michel Bourez (PYF) 14.14, Jordy Smith (ZAF) 14.04, Alejo Muniz (BRA) 13.13
Heat 8: Nat Young (USA) 15.93, Matt Banting (AUS) 15.53, Caio Ibelli (BRA) 14.60
Heat 9: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 12.84, Conner Coffin (USA) 11.26, Ryan Callinan (AUS) 10.50
Drug Aware Margaret River Pro Men’s Remaining Round 1 Match-Ups:
Heat 10: Kelly Slater (USA), Kolohe Andino (USA), Miguel Pupo (BRA)
Heat 11: John John Florence (HAW), Adrian Buchan (AUS), Sebastian Zietz (HAW)
Heat 12: Wiggolly Dantas (BRA), Josh Kerr (AUS), Jadson Andre (BRA)
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that description of Banting; classic. Would it be too cruel to suggest a transgender waiter?
Banting is the”overly courteous waiter” . Most accurate style description ever. Nailed it.
Little jabs like this = Beach Grit at its best. The inside baseball stuff is fun in fits and spurts, but this week it’s been a bit heavy.
I’m eagerly awaiting the completion of Banting’s Ricky Basnett Memorial Winless Season… hopefully he doesn’t luck into one…
Ricky killed it at one point,WTF happened? For me it was blow and car accidents, but bassnet was unreal off the rail and deadly free surfing.
the drink. he loves(ed) the drink and it did him hard.
Always wondered guy could tear the bag out of small waves. Saw a few clips of him that were out of hand.
This is the turning point for Taj and he’s going to roll through from here and win his world title.
Fuck, Taj. I guess I was kind of right.
Seems like scoring is clearly focused on wave size this year. The little asian kid from HB probably caught the biggest waves of his heat, but his surfing wasn’t even in the same league as Italo’s. If I’m scoring that heat, Italo wins by a good few points, not a few tenths of a point.
Bells seemed the same way, Seabass got a 8 for pretty much s’ing his way to the beach on a massive bomb.
Does anyone else imagine Adriano making sound effects and pretending to call his own waves while he surfs?
“Carbing carbing,trowing da feeeens oh and he claims!” so um, yes?
I imagine he’s actually shooting a John Woo flick and fighting a gang of invisible ninjas on the wave face. Try it. His whole act will make a lot more sense.
Ok this wins, but he’s much less fluid than water, more like a thick maple syrup substance. But not sweet so I guess in AIDS case,giz.
Caios 8.1 was way better than Bantings near 9 wasn’t it?
Caio is so boring
Say what you want about Caio, but he is saving my FS team. Cheap, last minute pickup that has paid off. Sorta like what Jeremy Flores did for my team his rookie year. Got lucky…
no way and i think he lost points for the claim at the end. put your god damn hands down we saw your fucking wave.
Are you kidding, blind or just plain alzheimer?
If you and @tomhamilton think that that (alleged) 8.1pt by Caio was boring, you must be losing your marbles. Best wave of the morning as far as I could tell, vastly superior to Nat “twitchy hunchback” Young’s 8.6pts!
That was another heat they stole from that kid. Jordy was annihilated at Bells but the judges gave him the fucking heat…
I’m blind. that half a foot revo where the fins barely made it out was not worthy of more than he got. 2 solid jams but like i said probably lost points for the claim
The revo wasn’t even it. Just rewatch that bottom turn to layback slice and see how much spray came out of that shit. Pause it just before he torques the board and check how much commitment there is on a beyond vertical section… now compare to Banting’s flat “poo stance” cutties and tell me that air he did at the end made up for an 8.93pt!
If you still think that, you’re beyond any help.
The turns were there and easily better than Bantings no doubt especially his 2nd one. I just cant stand his claims over everything which probably has swayed my decision and possibly the judges.
but Bantings air was lofty, huge, tail high, easily best air of the comp. had to reward it
I don’t care about the fucking claims. Wilko and Jordy have been claiming their nuts off and nobody from Anglo land utters a word of disapproval. It’s fucking disgraceful how much bias there is but the judges are paid and trained to put that all aside and be objective.
You want to be biased yourself? Knock yourself out but then don’t pretend to have any legitimate opinions regarding performances…
Is this Caio? Your awfully butthurt over the score
Deflection… classic!
not gunna keep arguing..so you win
plenty of us called out his mid-wave claim at Bells
And the consequent overscore? Please put up link to such outpour of criticism…
Well said!
Speaking of odd looking surfers…Nat seems to get stranger by the day. It’s something about the way his mouth moves when he talks that scares me. Even more than Miggy’s “Mouth Full ‘o Metal” which I know is only temporary…or I hope is only temporary.
What the fuck did you expect? He’s Seppo, they all sound strange when they move their mouths… Turdpail, Strider, Pete Mel, Pottz, shit, not Pottz, he’s Saffa, no Aussie, no wait… Pommie!
Was that even English???
total pom
I suspect the last move may of been called incomplete by the judges, fairly or not.