While the size of waves at the famous French beach break held in the overhead range, the conditions were rough with a lot of water moving around with the huge tide shifts on the second day of competition.
The day ended with nine out of the 11 heats of round 2 having at least one surfer with a heat total less than 10.00–consequently shaking up the title race as well as the Rookie of the Year battle.
The morning started slow with World No. 3 Filipe Toledo going head to head with the French Wildcard Maxime Huscenot. Toledo’s highest score came in at a 4.83, but the short stand-up barrel looked great and made Toledo seem confident early on.
With only a minute left on the clock, Toledo surprisingly still had the lead with a back-up score of only 1.07. Huscenot needed a 2.31 to turn the heat, and was stuck paddling out after a fall, but with 30 seconds left he turned around for a last ditch effort. Dropping in on a smaller left hander, Huscenot hit the lip twice on his backhand and then started chop hopping to get a few more turns on the inside going right. He fell on his last turn, but after the horn sounded the judge’s rewarded him with a 2.50.
The Frenchman left Toledo packing for Portugal and recalculate his strategy for the next event.
World No. 9 and Rookie of the Year points leader Italo Ferreira found himself on the good side of luck, moving straight through to Round 3 because Alejo Muniz was unable to surf due to the knee injury he sustained in his Round 1 heat.
Wiggolly Dantas, who is nipping at the heels of Ferreira in the ROTY points race, unfortunately was one of the many surfers who couldn’t find a single wave score over 5.00 and lost to Michel Bourez, who only scored a heat total of 7.67. Needless to say the points gap will widen quite a bit.
Another rookie who had a notable performance on day 2 was Keanu Asing. The Hawaiian stayed busy in his heat and took out former event winner Joel Parkinson. Although Parkinson’s lack of waves helped the rookie, Asing’s persistence and calm composure served him up the win. Ferreira and Asing will go head to head in Heat 4 of Round 3.
Day Two’s Top Performances
Kelly Slater posted the highest heat score of the day in his Heat 3 match up against Aritz Aranburu. If anyone could have beat Slater in these conditions, it would have been Aranburu, but he was left completely combo’d.
Slater started the heat 300+ yards up the beach from Aranburu. Everybody was hesitant of Slater’s strategy until he dropped into a triple overhead closeout. Then, Aranburu was on a jet ski headed to join him. Both surfers chased peaks back and forth the entire heat. It wasn’t until the last five minutes that Slater found a rhythm posting an 8.67 and 8.70 back to back.
Jeremy Flores also posted an 8.23 in his heat, getting spit out of a huge barrel. Using local knowledge, Flores stayed patient with priority and watched his competitor, Dusty Payne, take off on the first wave of a set with about 10 minutes left on the clock. Perfectly positioned for the second wave, Flores faded down the face and stalled bottom turning into a big ol’ barrel.
Ricardo Christie also found one of the few excellent range scores posting an 8.17 before having the win stolen from him by Nat Young in the dying moments of the heat. Christie only had a 4.17 back-up score and Nat Young capitalized, but Christie continues to prove his surfing is on par with the rest of the world’s best.
Kai Otton was the only other surfer to find an excellent range score, defeating Adam Melling in heat 10 after posting an 8.33. Dropping with both hands on the wall, Otton pulled straight into the barrel on his forehand and set up camp. He was gifted with an extra little cover up as he pumped out of the tube, and with that he took the lead and eventually the win from Melling.
“I definitely found a diamond in the rough, didn’t I,” Otton said in his post-heat interview with WSL Commentator Strider Wasilewski.
