All you need to know about this year's O'Neill World Cup at Sunset is it was one of the best in years. That's bound to happen when organizers are praying for the surf to come down instead of up just to finish on time. Sunset Beach was out of control for much of the wating period, but Triple Crown Contest Director Randy Rarrick couldn't have asked for better conditions on the final day. Light trades, solid 10 foot surf and a firing Inside Bowl provided plenty of drama this morning as the swell steadily declined...Here's the story lines.
39-year-old Sunny Garcia, a six-time Triple Crown Champion, was arguably robbed of his third World Cup. Garcia opened the final with an incredible needle threading of the Inside Bowl after ripping the outside. He earned a 9.4 on a wave that could have easily been given a 10.0. Had he been handed even a 9.7 he would have won. But the ocean went quiet in the final (call it the calm before Monday's huge storm) and the only backup wave Garcia's was able to muster was a disappointing 3.4. Sunny's been around long enough to know that's inexcusable.
Joel Parkinson, meanwhile, has clearly put his slump behind him. And if you're wondering about his ankle? Don't. Trust us...Parko's fine. What you should be watching is the momentum he's been building on ever since snapping out of his dreaded slump in Portugal. I'm pretty sure Fanning is. And after Parko's solid finish at Haleiwa and his win today, he's now hoping to capture the Triple Crown and the World Title at Pipeline. Yes, he'll need help from somebody, but he's ready for a fight.
All that said, Mick Fanning was the best surfer of the day. Add all of his rides from today's quarters, semis and the final and it's pretty clear this guy is on his game. Face it, he has been all year. But while Parko got off to his blazing start Fanning suffered two early losses in extremely close heats for good reason, his fellow competitors scored perfect 10-point-rides. When they don't he's been pretty frickin' hard to stop.
And we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the huge WQS drama at stake today, and the clutch performance put in by Hawaii's Dusty Payne, who qualified for the ASP World Tour during his first real season of slugging it out. That alone says all you really need to know about Dusty, whose odds were not favorable coming into Sunset. But with his berth into the finals Dusty powered his way up into the 9th slot on the WQS rankings all the way from the 18th. As a result, he pushed out Joan Duru, who was tied with Blake Thornton. On a countback, the Australian Blake Thornton stayed in the ASP WQS Top 15 and qualified for the 2010 ASP World Tour.
Not all hope is lost for Joan, however. Jay Thompson still has a chance of double qualifying by making the ASP World Tour Top 27,and if he does, he will not need his WQS spot, opening it up for Joan to become 15th.
Finals Results of the O'Neill World Cup
1. Joel Parkinson
2. Sunny Garcia
3. Mick Fanning
4. Dusty Payne
The final 15 ASP WQS qualifiers for the 2010 World Tour are:
Ross, Daniel AUS
Gudauskas, Patrick USA
Andre, Jadson BRA
Melling, Adam AUS
Wright, Owen AUS
Munro, Luke AUS
Thompson, Jay AUS
Yeomans, Nathan USA
Payne, Dusty HAW
Simpson, Brett USA
Wilkinson, Matt AUS
Gudauskas, Tanner USA
Logie, Travis ZAF
Polo, Marco BRA
Thornton, Blake AUS
ASP stat man Al Hunt brings has broken it down for us this way. The Australians have taken 50% of the available WQS slots with 7, USA with 4, Brazil with 2 and Hawaii and South Africa 1 each.
The big movers at Sunset were Dusty Payne 18-9, Tanner Gudauskas 16-12, Bernardo Miranda 22-17 and Van's Triple Crown Rookie of the year Alejo Muniz 38-26.
Drew Courtney and Rodrigo Dornelles were knocked off next year's tour by Tanner and Dusty. Drew ending up 18th and Rodrigo 19th.
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Monday, December 7, 2009 1:48am PST
The O'Neill World Cup goes World Class at Sunset
By: Chris Mauro, GrindTV.com
FEATURED NEWS
"Record" for Largest Wave Ever Ridden Trivializes Big-Wave Surfing
A return to old-school measuring techniques is in order
Consider two representations of two very big waves, below. The first is a photograph of Mike Parsons at Cortes Bank. The second is a video of Garrett McNamara near Nazare, Portugal. Now take out some measuring tape and make the distance of one foot between your hands. That's the amount, according to the Billabong XXL committee, that McNamara's wave is bigger than Parsons's wave.
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