2005 BILLABONG PRO TAHITI: EVENT UPDATE

posted by admin / News / May 14, 2005

Billabong Pro Live Webcast:
www.BillabongPro.com
and
www.ASPWorldTour.com

JUST SIXTY-THREE HEATS TO GO

With four days left in the waiting period for the Billabong Pro Tahiti, the Foster’s Men’s World Tour Top 45 are finally taking to the water this morning. It’s ultra clean out there on the reef, still only small at around three foot, but the swell is coming from the right direction and on the rise. We’re on!

“It’s got a real air of picking up!” said Contest Director Chris O’Callaghan. “You can see and feel that the ocean is trying to do something. It’s going to come up a foot per day, so we’ll have a solid and clean six foot by Tuesday. We’re going to come through it smelling like a rose!”

The attitude in the air this morning is a mixed one – relief to be ultimately getting on with the job, some understandable frustration after ten days waiting to finally go in ‘just’ three foot, resignation to the fact that we have to go, and hope that the forecast of building swell will hold true.

As our sound-man Adrian Dent announced over the PA as the contest workforce roared into action this morning…”Just sixty-three heats to go!” That’s the main thing!

“It’s pretty clean conditions, but the swell is really small, probably a solid two foot with some bigger ones! Whoever gets those ones out there today is who is going to get through,” said Phil Macdonald after his early morning session.

“You can only do what you can do, and we’ve only got four days left, including today, so we’ll just knuckle down and get through today, and tomorrow will be another story. There’s good swell coming, and that’s great,” continued Macca.

“Yep, we’re on! You just know there’ll be some reef action on the inside when you do that last desperate manoeuvre when you need a score!” predicted Occy after his warm-up this morning. He’s talking inside floaters on dry-ish shallow reef – fins and hopefully not skin.

ROUND 1 RESULTS

Heat # 1
3 – Daniel Wills
2 – Bede Durbidge
1 – Raoni Monteiro

Heat # 2
2 – Luke Egan
1 – Peterson Rosa
3 – Toby Martin

Heat # 3
1 – Taj Burrow
3 – Fredrick Patacchia
2 – Shea Lopez

Heat # 4
3 – Damien Hobgood
1 – Michael Lowe
2 – Luke Stedman

Heat # 5
1 – Mick Fanning
3 – Jake Paterson
2 – Tim Reyes

Heat # 6
1 – Kelly Slater
3 – Dean Morrison
2 – Kirk Flintoff

Heat # 7
1 – {{{CJ}}} Hobgood
2 – Phillip MacDonald
3 – Renan Rocha

Heat # 8
1 – Andy Irons
3 – Sunny Garcia
2 – Manoa Drollet

Heat # 9
1 – Joel Parkinson
3 – Troy Brooks
2 – Liam McNamara

Heat #10
2 – Trent Munro
1 – Darren O’Rafferty
3 – Hira Teriinatoofa

Heat #11
2 – Mark Occhilupo
1 – Taylor Knox
3 – Lee Winkler

Heat #12
2 – Tom Whitaker
1 – Bruce Irons
3 – Tim Curran

Heat #13
2 – Chris Ward

3 – Neco Padaratz 1 – Paulo Moura

Heat #14
3 – Richard Lovett
1 – Kalani Robb
2 – Travis Logie

Heat #15
2 – Cory Lopez
1 – Marcelo Nunes
3 – Greg Emslie
Heat #16
Nathan Hedge
Shane Beschen
Victor Ribas

The Billabong Pro Tahiti delivered by Air Tahiti Nui is proudly supported by Von Zipper, Bose, Kustom and The Tahitian Surfing Federation.

Billabong Pro Live Webcast: via www.BillabongPro.com and www.ASPWorldTour.com each day of the event utilizing live coverage in English, French and Portuguese, with the event websites being translated into these three languages plus, Japanese and Spanish. Various camera angles, highlights and replays, weather and scoring information, direct viewer interaction, celebrity guests, interviews and more are a part of the daily webcast program.