Photo: ASP
After six days of competition, the Volcom Fiji Pro concluded with a bang. The youngest surfer on tour, Gabriel Medina, lit the waves on fire taking down Taj Burrow and Mick Fanning (breaking two boards in the process) on his road to the final where he lost out to an even more on fire Kelly Slater. Kelly mowed over Julian Wilson and then C.J. Hobgood, who both put on spectacular performances throughout the event. After deciding to wait an extra day to hold the semi-finals and final due to increasing winds, Cloudbreak definitely held up on its end allowing the remaining surfers to put on a memorable performance. “We made a good call, some guys win some guys lose.” Kelly said.
Throughout the event, technological problems haunted the webcast. Be it transporting the equipment between the Cloudbreak tower and Restaurants or Red Bull TV’s satellite issues, viewers were left frustrated. During the final Twitter lit up with complaints of freezing screens and error messages appearing as fans tried to view the contest.
The final went off with Kelly and Gabriel trading off barrels (and the lead) a couple times early in the heat to make for a stunning contest. Kelly retained the lead most of the heat with a 9.83 and an 8.33. The middle of the heat saw few waves ridden, and Slater picked up priority forcing Medina to play around on the inside looking for a 9.57. The ocean stayed flat for the last ten minutes or so as Kelly managed to win the final with having only surfed two waves. For Slater this was the first time beating Medina in man on man competition, and when told this he laughed, “Ya, I had to get the little bugger before he goes off on everyone.”
“I want to dedicate this win to Jeremy Wire. Miss ya buddy.” Kelly said. And when asked about his current life on tour he replied, “At this point when I’m in my heat I’m focused, I’m just trying to really enjoy it.”
Day six of the waiting period saw the contest put on hold midway through the day as a giant swell that roared up through the southern oceans to bring massive glassy walls to Cloudbreak’s razor sharp reef. After the wind seemingly increased all morning the contest was put on hold only to see the conditions drastically improve soon after. Not surprisingly, much like last year’s Code Red swell in Tahiti, many of the world best big wave surfers showed up to face Tavarua’s finest. The only thing different this year? Everyone paddled. Everyone. There wasn’t a single tow team in the water, just Jamie Mitchell and Volcom’s Kai “Kaiborg” Garcia were staying busy on the PWC’s.
“We couldn’t have dreamed of a better contest,” said Volcom’s Richard Woolcott, “Thank you to everybody, beyond my wildest dreams.”
