DAY FOUR WRAP
by Ben Mondy
SURFER Senior WriterToday was one of those days when pro surfing totally and utterly justified itself. In fact, in the space of one hour, when in quick succession Dane Reynolds and Kelly Slater took to the super-fast, super-green, super-clean three-foot Winkipop walls, it may have underwent a pretty sizeable seismic shift. Now I know what you are thinking and, as a surf journalist, I’m prone to exaggeration and froth, heck it’s a part of the job description, but today Dane Reynolds surfed so hard and so fast and so inventively, he just may have ushered in a new era.
One last turn, coming straight after two hyper-drive hacks and a big air, I’m still struggling to come to terms with, let alone find a name for. I can’t and won’t do it justice, but to me it looked like a full-blooded layback hack to reverse, all performed under the lip at warp speed. And even when CJ came back with the biggest and longest wave of the day and a 9.7, he simply responded, calmly and ridiculously, with a 9.9 that featured one of the world’s best (and newest and biggest and most exciting) surfers, surfing a wave like he didn’t have a colored singlet on.
“I don’t even know what you call that stuff, but it’s blown my mind” said shaper Darren Handley, watching next to me.
Mind you, just as I was trying to get my head around that performance, Kelly Slater paddled out and set about reminding Dane Reynolds, the rest of the top 45, the 500 people watching at Winki and everyone else out there in the surfing cyberworld, just what he has left in the tank. And with two high speed no hands aerial 360’s, it looks the Slater 2008 version is running on high-octane nitrous oxide. It seems as if Kelly needs performances like Dane’s to keep him hot and interested.
Mind you, he wasn’t alone and with the exception of Taj, who scraped through in a wave-starved heat, the big guns dominated their opponents, the gulf in talent and drive and motivation, all too apparent. Fanning, somehow, managed to incorporate wafts and flair into to his speed turns, which only then set him up for his “proper” scary turns. Parko, somehow, was tubed and Andy strolled through, slipping in behind his mate Reynolds’s slipstream.
But at the end of the day, with only 16 surfers left, this day belonged to Dane Reynolds. He owned today with a level of surfing that just may have set a whole new standard for pro surfing. And if he keeps owning days like this, he’ll win this event, and whatever else he’s up for. |
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