Sean Doherty On Moche Rip Curl Pro Day 3: A Portuguese Miracle

“Outraged! Sending world title heats out in rubbish surf and ruining the world title race!”

For those late to the party that’s what the headlines (and your columnist) screamed yesterday. Julian Wilson: gone! Owen Wright: gone! Both dusted in shitty Portuguese surf, and what was potentially going to be a four or five or six-way world title finish at Pipeline, the grandest in living memory, looked like it’d be just Mick Fanning and Adriano De Souza. (Excuse me while I hit the De Snooza button on that one). Outraged, we looked for scapegoats. We wanted heads on sticks (Travis Logie’s would do). Nothing could quell our rage.

SEE ALSO: Sean Doherty On Day 2, Not Going Out Like That

But wait.

The only way this could be put right was if the unthinkable happened, the million-to-one chance that every other world title contender conspired to lose in a series of monumental upsets to a random assortment of backmarkers and Portuguese wildcards.

Yeah, right.

Don’t ask me to make any sense of what just happened at Supertubes today. Just how crazy was it? Well, by the end of it Mick Fanning’s certain world title is looking more a long shot. Instead of just two world title contenders we’re back up to six. And by the end of this event Gabe Medina, the reigning world champ whose record this season against supermodels far exceeds his record in the water, could be leading the ratings. And Trav Logie? A genius!

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When the first heats were sent out in marginal goop at first light, however, it looked like another day of ritual flagellation for the stand-in Commissioner. There were waves all the way up the coast to the north of Peniche, but with the contest site – in true WSL style – bigger than the old city of Peniche itself, there was no way it was going to be moved away from Supertubes. Under grim skies they dug in and prayed for a miracle.

Under purple skies and with a crowd of four people on the beach, watching Strider out there at his infomercial best talking about “beta testing” some kind of Back to the Future watch he was wearing, it was a strange scene. The first heats were rubbish, as bad as it had been yesterday, compounded by the running the final, dispiriting heats of round two where there was no world title glory on the line, just career salvation in drab, grey, one-foot closeouts.

But as round three hit the water, the tide filled in, the swell jumped, and shit got weird.

You can usually set your watch by the clockwork precision of Mick Fanning, just not today. The world title seemed his for the taking… cruise through to the finals here in Portugal, take everyone but Adriano out of the equation, then head to Pipe and calmly ice it like he did two years ago. Instead, he lost to Portuguese wildcard, Frederico Morais.

The loss was no accident. Morais has worked for years with coach, Richard “Dog” Marsh, the cunning Cronulla surfer having relocated to France years ago, and you could hear his sniggering Muttley laugh all the way back in Cronulla today as his boy caused a boilover. Mick surfed great and the result could’ve gone either way, but the loss has thrown a spanner in the narrative. After what happened at J-Bay – the big fish and all – you felt the world title would be fated fro Fanning, a poetic full stop on the whole episode. Well if Mick Fanning is going to win the world title he now really has to win it by winning it at Pipeline, where a 12-foot shark would be the least dangerous creature in the lineup.

The collective mania after Mick’s loss was contagious.

Kelly Slater, the winningest surfer of all time, lost to the losingest guy on tour, Brett Simpson. After years of surfing great but making an artform of losing heats, Simpo suddenly seems to have discovered winning is a far more enjoyable outcome. Where this leaves Kelly, well, you can do the math. He obviously had – maths being the only reason he’s even in Portugal – but he’s going to need a bit of luck to stay in the picture heading into Pipe. To be a heat-or-two short of a world title for the fourth year running? Well, I’m not even sure what that would do to a guy like Kelly.

The other crunch heat was De Souza losing to Vasco Ribeiro. In an octagon it would have been a total mismatch, the hulking Portuguese kid three times De Souza’s size, but out at Supertubes the mismatch you thought would be the other way around. In confused, shifty beachbreaks Adriano is the master, the only problem for Adriano being that by the time they paddled out, the waves had actually cleaned up and sorted themselves out. The big kid, the current World Junior Champ, latched onto a couple and suddenly the world title was wide open again.

You can draw a straight line between the success of the Portuguese surfers today, and the efforts of the guys behind the scenes to build pro surfing in the struggling country. At a time when the Portugal’s economy has been a basket case, it’s a modern day economic miracle that pro surfing is booming there… maybe the only place in the world where it is. The Portuguese crew had a great day today and thoroughly deserved it. And then there was Gabby.

Having won France without ever looking like losing, you always figured he was going to mess up someone’s world title between now and the end of the year. But I don’t think anyone was quite ready for the situation he finds himself in now… potentially the world title favourite. Late in the day he was a minute away from bowing out completely, when countryman Caio Ibelli jagged a drainer, but even as the clock ticked down, you sensed there’s an irresistible momentum about what’s happening for Gabe right now, and sure enough he found a wave, launched into an audacious backhand rotator, and landed it clean as a whistle for the win as a storm brewed on the horizon.

Moche Rip Curl Pro Portugal Round 2 Results:

Heat 8: C.J Hobgood (USA) 12.43 def. Kai Otton (AUS) 6.17

Heat 9: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 12.00 def. Adam Melling (AUS) 7.70

Heat 10: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 11.90 def. Adrian Buchan (AUS) 9.43

Heat 11: Kolohe Andino (USA) 14.43 def. Jadson Andre (BRA) 9.47

Heat 12: Michel Bourez (PYF) 11.17 def. Miguel Pupo (BRA) 10.83

Moche Rip Curl Pro Portugal Round 3 Results:

Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 14.70 def. Mason Ho (HAW) 2.76

Heat 2: Kolohe Andino (USA) 13.06 def. Bede Durbidge (AUS) 10.43

Heat 3: Brett Simpson (USA) 13.54 def. Kelly Slater (USA) 8.06

Heat 4: Nat Young (USA) 16.67 def. Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 13.17

Heat 5: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 15.00 def. Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 14.60

Heat 6: Frederico Morais (PRT) 16.03 def. Mick Fanning (AUS) 14.40

Heat 7: Vasco Ribeiro (PRT) 14.36 def. Adriano De Souza (BRA) 11.80

Heat 8: Keanu Asing (HAW) 13.43 def. John John Florence (HAW) 13.16

Heat 9: Jeremy Flores (FRA) 17.26 def. C.J Hobgood (USA) 12.47

Heat 10: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 14.17 def. Ricardo Christie (NZL) 12.84

Heat 11: Michel Bourez (PYF) 13.17 def. Josh Kerr (AUS) 13.10

Heat 12: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 17.67 def. Caio Ibelli (BRA) 15.87

Moche Rip Curl Pro Portugal Round 4 Results:

Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 19.00, Kolohe Andino (USA) 18.00, Brett Simpson (USA) 17.57

Heat 2: Frederico Morais (PRT) 14.96, Nat Young (USA) 14.50, Joel Parkinson (AUS) 7.43

Remaining Moche Rip Curl Pro Portugal Round 4 Match-Ups:

Heat 3: Vasco Ribeiro (PRT), Keanu Asing (HAW), Jeremy Flores (FRA)

Heat 4: Italo Ferreira (BRA), Michel Bourez (PYF), Gabriel Medina (BRA)





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