Spring Suits, Claims And A Snappy Four Heats In Saquarema

We saw a few breakthrough performances at Saquarema today folks. Notably, by spring suits, claims and not doing airs, respectively.

Spring suits put on an absolute beatdown. Mick, Yago, Gabriel, Wiggolly, Wilko and Owen sprung it out, accounting for 50 percent of the entire field. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen such dominance by non-all-encompassing pieces of rubber since the dawn of STDs.

Outside of that, claims had a huge day as did not doing airs. Almost everybody claimed and almost nobody stuck a good air. Yago, Gabriel and Julian all went north of the lip — and they all lost. It was round four though, so they’ve got another chance to cut the progressive shit and carve a smile back on the judge’s faces.

Let’s talk heats!

Adriano won (watch above), doing what Adriano does. Whether or not the guy fires you up to go surf, you have to respect his game. He works hard and if nothing else, Adriano has singlehandedly introduced one of the biggest and most complex words into professional surfing vocabulary: tenacious. Thanks for that, A. Then Mick did an air! Not, like, a good one (which is why it earned no mention above) but an air no less! After making it clear that he was gunning for a Title before the season started, then collecting a few unfortunate results, it’s all but guaranteed that Mick would’ve sustained the same debilitating injury as Slater if he didn’t still see a path the crown. Beware of the hungry warriors!

What really is there to be said about Ace Buchan that hasn’t already been said about key lime pie? He is good-looking, well-liked and occasionally finds himself in Quarters.

And Owen. Ever since Snapper, I’ve heard some chirping about him getting brain injury points. The WSL is trying to script this blah blah blah. I haven’t seen one heat, or even one wave, where I thought Owen was over-scored. The judges just seem to lust for in-the-pocket backhand surfing this year and their lust is unconditional — doesn’t matter who’s surfing. Now that Owen is in the Quarters, he’ll move back into 1st in the Rankings if he makes one more heat. That’ll keep things interesting heading into Fiji and J-Bay.

But first, we have to finish up with Rio.

Round four results:
Heat one: Adriano de Souza 17.27 def Wiggolly Dantas 16.54 def Gabriel Medina 16.53
Heat two: Mick Fanning 17.50 def Yago Dora 15.13 def Joel Parkinson 12.54
Heat three: Ace Buchan 15.67 def Jordy Smith 15.24 def Matt Wilkinson 12.66
Heat four: Owen Wright 17.23 def Kanoa Igarashi 16.83 def Julian Wilson 15.94

Round five matchups:
Heat one: W. Dantas, J.Parkinson
Heat two: Y. Dora, G. Medina
Heat three: J. Smith, J. Wilson
Heat four: K. Igarashi, M. Wilkinson