Kolohe Andino takes to the air at last year’s Hurley Pro. Photo: Benjamin Ginsberg
Progression arrives September 9th at Lower Trestles as both the Samsung Galaxy ASP Men’s and Women’s World Championship Tours are scheduled to compete at Southern California’s premier high-performance wave.
With four events remaining on the Men’s and Women’s 2014 ASP WCT schedule, both 2014 World Title implications and 2015 ASP WCT re-qualification are largely in play.
The men’s world title race is a complete runaway with only the current World #2, Kelly Slater, having a realistic shot at overtaking Gabriel Medina for all the marbles. With nearly an 8,000-point lead over Kelly going into the last four events of the season, it will take an epic collapse from Gabriel or near perfection from Kelly in order for World Title #12 to be seized in 2014, which would ultimately be snatching away the first Brazilian world title from Medina and the multitudes of Brazilian surf fans backing him.
Kelly’s results on the back half of the ASP WCT schedule have historically been great, particularly at Lowers and Pipeline. Wait, haven’t we seen this somewhere before?
Defending champ, Taj Burrow, will look to bounce back from his equal 13th result at the 2014 Billabong Pro Tahiti, which resulted in a downward slide from World #4 to World #6.
Hurley’s video trials competition yielded a winner in Carlos Munoz placing the young Costa Rican in Heat 6 of Round 1 with Gabriel Medina and Adam Melling. Local trials winner Tanner Gudauskas will face off against Kelly Slater and Matt Wilkinson in Heat 5 of Round 1.
On the other side of the coin, the women’s world title race currently has a tight four-way race with Carissa Moore holding a slight lead over Sally Fitzgibbons, Tyler Wright, and Stephanie Gilmore, respectively. Lowers could be a turning point for any one of these four surfers in their 2014 World Title campaign.
Early swell forecasts for the events waiting period, which runs through September 20th, do not currently point in a positive direction, with most days running in the 2 to 3 foot range.
My ASP Fantasy Surfing team picks for Lowers:
Men’s: Tier A: Kelly Slater and Kolohe Andino; Tier B: Adam Melling, Filipe Toledo, Jordy Smith, and Julian Wilson; Tier C: Brett Simpson and Mitch Crews.
Women’s: Tier A: Carissa Moore; Tier B: Stephanie Gilmore and Courtney Conlogue; Tier C: Alessa Quizon.
All the live and on demand action can be found at aspworldtour.com.
