SURFERMAG.COM PRO TOUR UPDATES
The Rip Curl Cup at Hawaii's Sunset Beach - the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tournament (WCT) that has crowned the last 2 world champions -is ready to start.
"If the Pipeline Masters is surfing's Super Bowl, then the Rip Curl Cup is our Tour de France: the ultimate endurance test," says USA's Surfing Magazine Editor Evan Slater in a fitting summary of the extreme challenge facing the world's best surfers in this year's penultimate WCT, to be held in the best possible conditions between November 24th and December 7th.
Rip Curl team rider, Pancho Sullivan, a 30-year-old North Shore local, was today named as the sponsor "wildcard" for the 2003 Cup, with a berth in the main event alongside the world's top 45 surfers.
Opportunity beckons for Sullivan and lesser-known surfers to upstage the world's top 45 at Sunset. A one-day Trials event will pit 22 Hawaiian locals against 10 Rip Curl team members from around the globe, with the winner and runner-up rewarded with two other "wildcard" slots (besides that given to Sullivan) in the 48-man main event field.
Two of the past four Rip Curl Cup winners were trialists - Hawaiian Myles Padaca in 2001 and Australian Zane Harrison in 1999 - showing the potential impact such surfers can have.
Sullivan is understandably excited by the opportunity presented to him, and his record in Hawaiian competitions, particularly at Sunset Beach, marks him as a serious danger to the world's top 45. Runner-up in the 1997 Rip Curl Cup, Sullivan has competed every year since, without luck. He did win the 2002 Rip Curl Cup Trials, but was beaten in Round Two of the main event in inconsistent conditions. Less than a month ago he won the World Qualifying Series event at Sunset Beach, his third victory in that event in the past six years.
"I'm really looking forward to this chance to take on the world's top 45," Sullivan said, adding: "Ever since I started surfing professionally, I've aimed to win the Rip Curl Cup, but first place has eluded me. To win that event at Sunset really solidifies your reputation as a surfer because the quality of the competitors and the waves are so challenging."
While its name sounds benign and romantic, the Rip Curl Cup venue of Sunset Beach is truly one of the world's most daunting challenges for any surfer, named in 2002 by the USA's Surfer Magazine as one of the "World's 10 Heaviest Waves".
With a takeoff area the size of a football field, Sunset's deep-water offshore reef produces waves from four to 15 foot-plus - offering unique rides that test a surfer's fitness, wave selection skills, courage, maneuvering, tube-riding and ability to handle the heaviest imaginable wipeouts.
Add the limited time pressure of competition, the US$250,000 prizemoney at stake and the Cup's status as one of the most coveted of all event titles in pro surfing, and it promises a dramatic spectacle, to say the least.
Other important factors add even more intrigue, pressure and potential surprises.
As the second-last of 12 WCT's in 2003, the Rip Curl Cup will have a major bearing on this year's world title and final world rankings. For the top 45 male surfers in the world, Sunset could make or break their career.
The Rip Curl Cup is also the second event of the Vans Triple Crown Of Surfing - the most prestigious event series outside the World Championship Tour - cranking up the pressure valve a little more.
Also crucially, the Rip Curl Cup is the only WCT this year with four-man heats, forcing the top 45 competitors to re-think the strategies they have employed throughout the year in the standard man-on-man competition format used in all other WCT's.
The Vans Triple Crown Series features the world's top athletes competing in three championship events in each of the following sports: Skateboarding, Wakeboarding, Surfing, Snowboarding, BMX and Freestyle Motocross. The Series is made possible through the support of Vans, the Xbox video game system from Microsoft, Mountain Dew, Ford Trucks, Right Guard Xtreme Sport, Fox Sports Net, Surfing Magazine and NBC Sports.
For more media information, contact: Rip Curl Cup Media Liaison Gary Dunne Phone: 1-808-554-7492 & (from November 24th to December 7th) 1-808-638-0973 Email: gdunne@ripcurl.com.au
Vans Tripe Crown Media Director Jodi Young Phone: 1-808-258-8533 Email: oceanpromotion@earthlink.net
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