Taj Burrow, Manly, Australia

During his first few heats at the Australian Open of Surfing, Manly, Taj Burrow was electric. Finners, air-revs and swerves that were quicker than seemed possible on waves of very minimal height. He steamed through his round of 96 and round of 48 heats, but in his round of 24 match-up against Hawaiian Granger Larsen and Brazilian Peterson Crisanto yesterday afternoon, Taj couldn’t buy a wave. ‘Wave-starved’ don’t even do the closing minutes justice. However, when his fortunes were better and magnetism was more in-sync, frontside hits like the one pictured here were frequent. May(hem)be there’s a secret there.