With only one swell due to arrive in the waiting period window, Billabong Pro Contest Director Mike Parsons decided on using the ASP's new one-and-done format that caused quite a stir among the ASP World Tour competitors in Tahiti. The new format, which was approved during the off season in order to improve the odds of surfing in better conditions, makes it possible to finish events in three days rather than four. The thinking early on was this would make life easier for the pros, as they wouldn't be forced to surf on as many crappy days since the average swell lasts about three days.

Of course, the new format ran into serious PR issues at Bells and Teahupoo, where even it couldn't rescue the event from some crappy surf and high drama, as guys like Kelly Slater and Dane Reynolds lost in their first heats and were sent home. Naturally, those who lost early weren't happy with the format, and the fever pitch of bitching by ASP pros was glass shattering in Tahiti, as a long flat spell and heated debates over the new format raised blood pressures across the board. At Teahupoo, Contest Director Luke Egan, one the most vocal voices for surfers during his days on the pro tour, found himself on the other side of the table, taking all the abuse.

At Jeffreys Bay, it's Parsons in the unenviable position of making things run smoothly. Odds are he'll be copping shit from several athletes regardless of which way he decides to go, as the casualties mount either way. One possible saving grace was the option of running dual heats, which would have allowed the old format to be used, albeit in a way that moves things along much faster. Parsons, no doubt getting pressure from surfers who want the safety net option, hadn't ruled that out until early Monday morning in South Africa. He ruled against it due to the long lulls between sets. But in order for that option to work, there must be a steady flow of waves.

Here are the Round One match ups that took place last night.

ASP NEW FORMAT

BILLABONG PRO JEFFREYS BAY ROUND 1 MATCH-UPS:

Heat 1: Tim Boal (FRA) vs. Michael Picon (FRA)

Heat 2: Jay Thompson (AUS) vs. Nathaniel Curran (USA)

Heat 3: Josh Kerr (AUS) vs. Nic Muscroft (AUS)

Heat 4: Kai Otton (AUS) vs. Phillip MacDonald (AUS)

Heat 5: Dean Morrison (AUS) vs. Marlon Lipke (DEU)

Heat 6: Chris Ward (USA) vs. Torrey Meister (HAW)

Heat 7: Dustin Barca (HAW) vs. Sean Holmes (ZAF)

Heat 8: Kekoa Bacalso (HAW) vs. Ryan Payne (ZAF)

Heat 9: Tim Reyes (USA) vs. Devyn Mattheys (ZAF)

Heat 10: Dayyan Neve (AUS) vs. Heath Joske (AUS)

Heat 11: Heitor Alves (BRA) vs. Greg Emslie (ZAF)

Heat 12: Chris Davidson (AUS) vs. David Weare (ZAF)

Heat 13: Aritz Aranburu (EUK) vs. Michel Bourez (PYF)

Heat 14: Jihad Khodr (BRA) vs. Roy Powers (HAW)

Heat 15: Tiago Pires (PRT) vs. Ben Dunn (AUS)

Heat 16: Dane Reynolds (USA) vs. Drew Courtney (AUS)



BILLABONG PRO JEFFREYS BAY ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:

Heat 1: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 2: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) vs. TBA

Heat 3: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. TBA

Heat 4: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. TBA

Heat 5: Bobby Martinez (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 6: Tom Whitaker (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 7: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 8: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 9: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 10: Mick Campbell (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 11: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 12: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. TBA

Heat 13: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 14: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 15: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 16: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. TBA

When Kolohe Andino was faltering midway through his fourth round heat of the Men's NSSA National Championships on Friday, his father Dino, watching from shore, tried desperately to comfort himself by floating a trial balloon. He muttered aloud something about the world not ending if his son didn't win this year. But his good friend Mike Parsons, standing nearby, immediately shot him down on the apparent show of weakness.

"No way!" Parsons spat back, smacking fist to palm. "This is it...This is the moment...There's no more waiting."

While Kolohe's situation remained in jeopardy neither Mike or Dino was holding up very well. Knowing both of them for longer than I care to mention, seeing them in such a high-stress state was--I confess--pretty damn amusing. The intensity, drive, and determination that earned these two former rivals their own national titles as amateurs and pros is all being channeled into something and somebody else now. That they had zero control of this moment was utter torture for them. And frankly, there's something funny about watching two capital "A" Alpha-males grapple with circumstances beyond their control. Watching nervous parents live and die with every turn is one of the better parts of the NSSA Nationals.

The evolution of the Parsons-Andino dynamic takes some explanation given their history, but understanding it is crucial to knowing what makes 15-year old Kolohe Andino tick. Kolohe is one of the most highly-touted grommets in surfing today. He has been for a few years. But that hasn't made raising him any easier for Dino, who grew up fighting for every scrap of an opportunity when he was Kolohe's age. Dino was raised largely unsupervised.

"I remember seeing him when he was ten years old out at Uppers," recalls Parsons. "He was this loud obnoxious little kid who was being raised by guys on the beach." Much of Dino's education was learned on the street. So years later, when as a father, his own son started seeing opportunities he would have killed for, Dino's survival instincts were the driving force of his decision making. "I grew up never saying 'no' to any opportunities...because they just didn't come easily. It was a survival thing for me."

As Kolohe's surfing progressed, the father son relationship was complicated as Dino suddenly found himself playing the same coach and manager role that he was playing with some of the best surfers in the world through his jobs at Oakley and then Billabong. "That's the toughest part of being a parent of a kid with talent," says Parsons, who became a father for the first time just over a year ago. "All kids want from their parents is love and support. But when you're playing all those other roles like coach or manager the message gets mixed because in those roles you have to ride them from time to time. There were a few times when I had to tell Dino to back off."

"We struggled at times, for sure," says Kolohe. "But we got it figured out. It's funny, because he's been way mellower ever since he stopped drinking coffee. And now Snips [Parsons] is the one playing the coaching role. Yesterday, Mike pulled me aside for about a half an hour and we just watched the waves and visualised exactly how I was going get up on the podium and celebrate. And what's crazy is it happened just like we planned it."

The pressure on Kolohe to live up to all his bright-light billing
might seem cruel, but it was there. "Our job is to sheild him from it, and just give him the information he needs," says Parsons. "But he's a smart kid. He knew what was expected of him this year, so to come through the way he did says a lot about the strength of his character." It's a fine line between highly-touted and over-hyped, and even Kolohe knows the difference. This past weekend, he did far more than
deliver on expectations. He smashed them. Kolohe netted $6000 for winning the Open Men's and the Air Show
divisions, but far more in the respect category. With his victory, the Andinos became the first father son combo to win NSSA National Championships.

Of course, Kolohe's most enduring memory of Nationals will likely be watching his stress during the closing minutes of the Final. "It went flat for a while. When I looked in I saw him pacing back and forth on the beach and just started laughing, watching him. It was pretty classic."

I'm just glad I wasn't the only one getting a kick out of it.

More coverage of the Nationals to come...so stay tuned.

Would-Be Rivals Take Top Honors at The Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards

By Chris Mauro

Rivalries are nothing new in surfing. The pursuit of the perfect wave is, after all, a hot war being fought over a precious natural resource. It takes a perfect storm and a broad swath of ocean to give life to these beasts. That's why average big-wave surf break is ridden only a handful of times each year. Traditionally, when legendary swells arrive the keepers of local surfing lore crawl out of their holes to take note of who did what. Those who charge with reckless abandon are lifted onto pedestals, declared clinically insane or both if they put on a really good show.

Each corner of the world produces its own big-wave idols, yet until the advent of the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards a decade ago these distant cousins rarely, if ever, met. Today, the affair brings this community of like-minded freaks together. For one night each year, regional stars and global rivals now gather under one roof to celebrate the year's biggest and most terrifying accomplishments in big-wave surfing. It makes for an interesting evening since this community is famously comprised of alpha males with elephant size egos who enjoy nothing more than talking smack about their counterparts.


Greg Long and Grant "Twiggy" Baker, two of the most dominant players in the big-wave game these days, don't fit that mold. Both surfers have charming' "even disarming personalities. They also maintain a healthy respect for each other. So it's more than a little strange that both were big winners at this year's XXL proceedings last Friday night in Anaheim. Long, 26, of San Clemente, California, took "Ride of the Year" honors worth $50,000, while Baker, 35, of Umhlanga, South Africa, nabbed the esteemed "Biggest Wave and best "Overall Performance" categories.

That they dominated this year's awards was hardly a surprise though. Over the past couple of years they've each been on a tear in the big stuff. Both have won the prestigious Maverick's surf contest in Half Moon Bay, California, as well as the Red Bull Big Wave Africa competition held at a shark infested break called Dungeons, just outside of Cape Town. What' s interesting about their individual achievements is that they're undoubtedly a result of their partnership as a tow-in team when things get truly oversized. This duo has rapidly become one of the most prolific teams in big wave history.

In years past the would-be rivals would likely be at each other's throats, if they were communicating at all. Instead, the bond between them is emblematic of a huge shift in the nature of this once very selfish, lone wolf pursuit. Surfers used to build their big-wave reputations alone, forming relationships with the nearest big wave break and doing their best to own it whenever the waves turned on. Yet that paradigm was rocked in the mid 90s with the advent of tow-in surfing.

When personal Wave Runners were abruptly thrown into the big-wave arena, breaks previously thought impossible to ride were suddenly ripe for the plucking. Now when swells get truly massive surfers grab hold of ropes attached to personal water craft and get whipped into the very danger zone that they can't breach under paddle power alone. Old barriers of big wave riding are consistently being shattered as a result. Whereas 25 to 30-foot waves were once considered the survivable ceiling, suddenly surfers are riding waves as big as 50, 60 and even 70 feet; they're also riding more compact, ferocious slabs that are thicker and more ugly than anything seen before. The Billabong XXL Awards Show was born as a result of all this, and in part, to see if this new era could lead to the first ever100-foot wave attempt.

To date, the record for the world's biggest ride is held by Mike Parsons, who, at age 43, rode a 70-foot wave at Cortes Bank in January of 2008. This fickle big-wave spot was once only known as the most treacherous nautical hazard off the Southern California coast, sitting 100 miles out in the middle of the ocean. Cortes Bank, it is widely believed, is the place most likely to produce the hallowed 100-foot wave due to its exposure and scalability. Yet it will likely take an El Nino winter storm to make it happen. The last El Nino winter was in 1998, three years before any serious attempts at Cortes were underway. Parsons won the first XXL Award there in 2001, and repeated last year, breaking his old record. Both times he was towed-in by Brad Gerlach, a bitter rival from his earlier days as a pro surfer, who has since become his best friend.

The relationship between Long and Baker started off as a competitive one, too. "We met at a big wave contest down in Africa," says Long. ' Most of the other guys were getting lazy during the three-week waiting period, but Grant was up before dawn every day checking the conditions; we both were. After bumping into each other a few times super early in the morning we started looking for waves together' and we haven't stopped since.'

Despite the fact that these two live on opposite sides of the world, the pairing has been remarkably successful when it comes to chasing down the big swells. "We live off of the weather models," says Baker. "I'm always watching storms in the Southern Hemisphere, while Greg has the whole Northern half of the globe covered. When we see something cooking on the maps we determine where we need to be do all it takes to get there." The past 12 months were relatively quiet in the Northern Hemisphere relative to previous years, which means they spent a lot of time in the Southern Hemisphere, which produced a good chunk of this year's most spectacular rides. Tasmania, Tahiti and Chile were a few of the prominent players, but Long and Baker both caught their winning rides in South Africa.

"Those guys deserve everything they're getting right now," says Parsons, who knows what it takes to be a tireless swell chaser with 15-years of big game hunting under his belt. "I don't see anyone else out there with the dedication level they have. If somebody is going to break the 100-foot mark the smart money is on those guys. Because when it's that big it's not a solo act. It's a team effort."