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© The Ponder Room
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©The Ponder Room
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A sport that relies on Mother Nature is always going to be interesting, and after fairly quiet, sunny days, Thursday began in wild and wooly conditions with waves around 10 to 15 feet. In conditions usually associated with Hawaii, forget about winning, riders focused on making sure they didn’t land one on their head.
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| Slater swamped in 2011
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No doubt the conditions brought back memories of 1993 for Slater who in previous interviews described that experience as….
‘It was wonderful’, joked Slater. ‘I lost my first heat, got last place, ripped my wetsuit open, broke my board and got my leash stuck on the reef – then my rental car broke down, it was all bad for me at that event and I haven’t been back to surf in it since.’
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Slater
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Today the challenging conditions were made even more interesting with some competitors not bringing boards for these conditions. Consequently the day began with frantic scrambling and texting as competitors scrounged boards off other each. In what other sports would you see that, competitors borrowing equipment from each other, now that’s mateship? Some competitors rode boards they hadn’t been on for years, others on borrowed boards, and some even braved the sets on their smaller boards. I could hear Slaters comments of yesterday echoing in my head.
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Slater © The Ponder Room
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Still walking to his own beat, Slater paddle out into the rain squalled 60 km wind wearing boardies, a vest and on a 4 fin, 5 foot 9 board. The result….
…first in his heat and taking 8.67, equal highest score for the day at the time of his ride. Later while commentating he revealed his thoughts while out amongst it ….‘I was having a ball out there, I was laughing the whole time’, and when riding back on the ski ‘we were screaming and laughing we couldn’t see anything.’
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One glaring difference between this event and state competitions or events of old, were the jet ski assists. Each heat lasts 30 minutes, the rider aims to catch two to three good waves and then desperately signals for the jet ski to take them back out. However today even that proved interesting with some competitors getting blown off the ski. That ride alone would have been enough for me.
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| Even Slater can wipeout
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The competition continues through the weekend, and Slater has been reported as saying that Saturday looks like being the best day.
- If you’ve already got 10 world titles and this is a non-world title event, why would you go out in these conditions?
- Is it wrong to sneak into the Competitors Wellness Area and make use of the chiroprator and massage therapists?
