5 Observations from day four at the Hurley Pro

Words by Damien Farhenfort

The swell’s fading! Day four at the Hurley Pro has come to a close. They’re going to have to run tomorrow while there’s still some residual push in the water. The Brazilians stole the show today, apart from the magical recovery by Mr Slater that I’m still trying to make sense of. The amount of eight-plus scores put up by the Brazilian storm in today’s heats overshadowed the works of anyone else in competition. Four out of the eight competitor in the Quarters are Brazilian, giving further proof to their dominance in smaller, ripable waves.

That passion is intense.
Round four heat one was the first heat of the event so far that was really exciting. I thought Migs Pupo deserved to win that heat but Filipe surfed incredibly well. His rail game is really slick. Hopefully he grows a bit more so he can use it in slightly bigger waves. Once he gets that dialed in surf with some power behind it, the kids going to be unstoppable.

Gabs will win two events this year.
His confidence is back. He surfed insanely well and doesn’t look he’s going to fall on any move. The way the young Brazilian was surfing in this event, he’s going to be extremely hard to beat. Like I said previously Fillipe looks to be the only gent who can compete with him right now. With the waves getting smaller, the Brazilians will continue to assert their dominance.

Italo’s got game, the kids been putting on a show all season. Photo: WSL/ Kirstin Scholtz

Italo got ripped off.
He should have made that heat against Wiggolly. He had more variety and surfed with a lot more speed. Wiggs repititour seemed repetitive in comparison, although he was moving more water. Italo had a wave after his heat that he rode switchfoot and surfed it better than a lot of pro’s or any of the old boys in the expression session.

Slater had the wave to get the score.
That last wave had the opportunity to get the score but he kinda bogged it. The board he was riding didn’t look great today but how fun was Kelly’s 4 point air? I kinda wished they had given it an eight for the recovery. Probably one of the coolest looking mistakes I’ve ever seen and it’s so rad how he keeps doing crazy shit. Unfortunately he had the wave to make it through to the quarters and couldn’t capitalize. Still the man’s got to be some sort of wizard, that recovery looked computer animated.

Nat and Owen scoreless at the eight minute mark?
No one caught a wave until Nat finally found one to wiggle on at the eight minute mark. I was really stoked to watch this battle of two of the best backhands in the biz. The swell’s fading and it really shows. But still, there were ridable waves and Owen dug himself into a rut. Putting up two scorable waves in eight minutes is a challenge, and not one you want to find yourself in an elimination round. This heat put me to sleep, I would have rather watched golf…