Chris Ward, Itauna, Brazil

The Quiksilver Saquarema Prime presented by Coca-Cola has been chugging away in a post-Billabong Pro haze. Plenty of men on the WT stuck around to compete in the event and try to scoop some all-too-precious ratings points. Men like Matt Wilkinson, Kai Otton, Kolohe Andino, Pat Gudauskas. But there’s also a group of men who’re trying to scoop enough points to put themselves closer to the cusp of WT qualification. Men like Chris Ward, pictured here.

The 33 year old, whose long-standing association with Lost and Mayhem produced the frequently-uttered phrase, Where’s Wardo? (so befitting of a man who walks to the beat of his own dream), has still got it. He lay-down a 9.57 in Saquarema recently to eliminate top seed Alejo Muniz and man-of-grit Gabriel Villaran. “I caught such a good left that I thought I wasn’t going to be able to paddle into,” said Wardo. “But I won the paddle battle and it was worth it because it opened up and was really good. I was stoked with the score the judges gave me and at the end I just stayed on the rights and tried to throw a couple of airs and just had fun until the horn sounded.” Pictured here is one of those airs. Lofty, to say the least. And although Wardo ain’t in the contest anymore, isn’t it good to occasionally see a man dig his heels in?

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