Being a goofy-foot’s hopeless at head high Backdoor

Words by Morgan Williamson / All photos by WSL 

Wet and tropical, that’s what we’ve been dealing with the last few days on the rock. It’s winter in Hawaii, and that’s what you get. It was assumed that the contest wouldn’t run today, but as the clock neared eight, Mr Perrow made the call. The crowd shuffled in wearing garbage bags, wielding umbrellas or looking for shelter from the consistent showers, but for a Friday the beach wasn’t as you’d imagine. The day’s buzzword is ‘contestable,’ it’s all I hear about the conditions. It’s overhead, clean and backdoor. Infinitely more contestable than the previous two days.

Round two, heat one’s sudden death for title contender Filipe Toledo. He’s matched up against Bruce Irons, who knows the ribs of Pipe and Backdoor as well as anyone. It’s a bit smaller than yesterday, and a good backdoor drainer is what the boys are hunting. Bruce gets a few waves, but Mr Toledo leapfrogs BI with a savvy backdoor performance. It’s worth noting that in his post heat interview Kelly Slater highlighted that fact that Filipe wasted valuable time by staying on waves for too long rather than kicking out and getting straight back into the lineup. It’ll be interesting to see if he heeds the King’s advice when the contest resumes, but his title dreams remain plausible, for now.

“I’m lucky to get through today, yesterday I was thinking about this heat all day coming up against Bruce,” Filipe told the WSL in his post heat interview. “I knew I was going to have to go big since he’s one of the best out here and it was a pleasure to compete against him. I’m super stoked to earn some respect from Bruce, I paddled over to him after the heat and we had some good words so that was amazing. When I was a kid I would watch him surf Backdoor and everywhere else.”

Heat three’s Adriano de Souza v Jack Robinson. It’s tense. We’ve seen what young Jack can do in dense waves. WA has groomed the kid into a world class tube-hound, however, it’s had no positive effect on his haircut. It’s a close heat, ADS hounded Jack whenever he had priority, as if to say, “don’t fuck up my title chances you little grom.” Adriano pulled into a clean Backdoor pipe towards the backend of the heat and capped it off with a neat roundhouse. JR needed a 5.78, and in the dying minutes slipped into a hopeful one, but was only able to squeak a 5.17, keeping De Souza in the title race.

Julian Wilson’s the next hopeful trying to keep his title ambitions in tact. He’s matched up with Piping Hot’s second most famous surfer Wade Carmichael, the current Triple Crown Leader. Jules made it through with ease. When he exited the water, the poor guy couldn’t make three steps without being swarmed by girls and guys, old and young. Countless dudes shove GoPro’s and iPhone’s in his face dying to fill their Instagram with a shot of the most handsome man in surfing. Mr Wilson’s a professional, he does the countless media interviews, sports a smile, throws thumbs ups, takes pictures and signs everything from hats to broken surfboards to t-shirts and bare skin. It’s got to be exhausting, I leave him alone. He gets a minuscule break in the chaos, and puts his head down and takes off down the beach back to the sanctuary of friends not fans. It’s 2015, the surf celebrity is a very real thing.

Jordy’s back and’s tearing a fresh one out of a backdoor wall.

It wasn’t a day for the goofy footers. Being backside at backdoor in head high runners is a huge disadvantage. The only man who made it through on his backside was Ace Buchan, and that’s because he was surfing against fellow goofy foot Miggy Pupo. Mr Jordy Smith’s who’s been plagued by injury all season was looking healthy as ever, and surfed in the fashion we’ve truly missed. He was knifing deep tunnels and topped his highest wave score (8.67) with the heftiest turn we saw all day. The crowd erupted and he advanced to round three.

Round two results:
Heat 1: Filipe Toledo 14.23 def. Bruce Irons 5.07

Heat 2: Taj Burrow 13.77 def. Brett Simpson 11.20
Heat 3: Adriano De Souza 13.10 def. Jack Robinson 12.50
Heat 4: Adam Melling 15.50 def. Matt Wilkinson 4.46
Heat 5:  Julian Wilson 12.83 def. Wade Carmichael 6.00
Heat 6: Adrian Buchan 13.17 def. Miguel Pupo 12.50
Heat 7: Kelly Slater 15.57 def. Dusty Payne 14.93
Heat 8: Sebastian Zietz 10.50 def. Jadson Andre 6.74
Heat 9: Glenn Hall 8.60 def. Nat Young 7.80

Heat 10: Keanu Asing 10.33 def. Kolohe Andino 4.90
Heat 11: Joel Parkinson 13.93 def. Ricardo Christie 5.43
Heat 12: Jordy Smith 16.00 def. Wiggolly Dantas 4.87

Round three match-ups: 
Heat 1: Gabriel Medina vs. Jordy Smith
Heat 2: Bede Durbidge vs. Keanu Asing

Heat 3: Italo Ferreira vs. C.J. Hobgood
Heat 4: Kelly Slater vs. Michel Bourez
Heat 5: Mick Fanning vs. Jamie O’Brien

Heat 6: John John Florence vs. Taj Burrow
Heat 7: Filipe Toledo vs. Mason Ho
Heat 8: Joel Parkinson vs. Kai Otton

Heat 9: Jeremy Flores vs. Sebastian Zeitz

Heat 10: Julian Wilson vs. Adam Melling
Heat 11: Josh Kerr vs. Adrian Buchan
Heat 12: Adriano De Souza vs. Glenn Hall

Woman’s Pipe Invitational results:
1- Carissa Moore 18.96
2- Courtney Conlogue 10.50
3- Keala Kennelly 9.23
4- Tatiana Weston-Webb 4.84