Photo: WSL |Kirstin Scholtz
Well, that’s one way to win a surfing contest. Don’t even give your competitors a chance — just rack up perfect score after perfect score on your way to an unopposed victory. At least, that was Owen Wright’s recipe at the Fiji Pro.
The sinewy heavy-wave specialist with the world class rail game and a punt package equal of anyone’s in world surfing came closer to perfection than anyone in the history of the sport. His two perfect 20-out-of-20 heats in the event were a first for surfing (he also joins Kelly Slater and Joel Parkinson as the only surfers to have scored more than one perfect heat) while the win marked the long-awaited return to form for the Australian following a career-threatening back injury in 2013.
After a junior career in which he swept all before him, Wright was touted as the heir apparent to Mick Fanning’s throne as Australia’s number one competitive force. He memorably knocked out Kelly Slater as a 19-year-old wildcard in the 2009 Rip Curl Pro Portugal on his way to a contentious semi-final finish (he injured himself moments after posting a perfect 10 in his quarterfinal against Damian Hobgood only to be ruled out by doctors despite wanting to return to the water for his semi against fellow Rip Curl team rider and world-title hopeful Fanning).
He qualified for the World Tour in a scintillating six-month spurt on the WQS. He easily claimed Rookie of the Year honors in his debut season and quickly challenged Kelly Slater for a world title in his second, the pair contesting an unprecedented three world tour finals in a row — a world title was seen as the natural progression, and it had been since he claimed his first ISA World Junior Championship in a canter at 16.
Then the back injury happened. And then a re-injury upon coming back. An entire year spent on the sidelines plus a few lesser mishaps (a knee and shoulder injury in Portugal, a knee injury at Bells) had him earmarked as potentially one of the unlucky super talents whose body can’t keep up with their athletic ambitions of their mind.
But 2014 showed glimmers of the Owen we knew. His body was on the mend but had yet to intersect with mind and confidence in the way we knew was possible. Would it ever? Were his best years to be plagued by injury?
With five perfect 10s to his name in 2015, the most of any surfer on tour by a long way, the answer to that question is a resounding no.
As of the Fiji Pro, the Owen of old is back and it is a sight to behold. There is simply no weakness in his surfing and Cloudbreak — being the theater of high performance rail gaffs and thunderous blue caverns that it is — is a perfect fit for the Australian.
When it tubed, his lines were flawless, beginning at times with a prone take off under a mountain of white water before squirting off the bottom into the deepest part of the pocket and beginning his run. His speed control in the pit is peer-less. The way he uses his back arm while at the same time pumping through oncoming sections while at the same time dragging his front fingers for every last centimeter of shade was unparalleled.
He is renowned among World Tour competitors in for his ocean knowledge and heat strategy. But having grown up in a region dotted by treacherous, highly technical rock slabs, it’s tubular waves of consequence that he really excels in. Owen first made a name for himself as a 15 year old at Pipe — a feat which cannot be underestimated given the fiercely localized and haole-averse climate that it is. He’s already been to Tahiti twice this year, including a trip to meet a nasty west swell with his sister Tyler Wright just before Brazil, so his exceptional form in Fiji shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Spending the amount of time in waves of consequence that he does you’d wanna know a thing or two about the ocean’s esoteric rhythms. If you’ve ever spent time with Owen, you’d know he is something of a scientist when it comes to swell speeds, lulls, and identifying rhythms. He called it before paddling out for the final. A flurry of Cloudbreak drainers was a certainty, he believed, given the the rhythm of previous heats. When they came he was on every one. He had Julian combo’d before even nailing the pair of perfect 10s in the sublime two-minute flurry to close the heat.
Bar a round-two scare in a wave-starved affair with Aritz Aranbaru, he was untouchable in Fiji.
Photo: WSL |Kirstin Scholtz
The World Title race, meanwhile, remains largely unchanged with the Brazilian Storm having puffed out in the Pacific as predicted, though Fanning and Kelly Slater were unable to capitalize on early exits for Adriano De Souza, Felipe Toledo and the lackluster defending champ, Gabriel Medina.
Next stop: J-Bay.
Want more from Jed Smith? Don’t forget to watch his show The Pipeline! And be sure to listen to his surfing podcast, Ain’t That Swell.
