Why Reef Heazlewood Should’ve Won The Red Bull Airborne (D-Bah) And More

Reef Heazlewood should have won the inaugural Red Bull Airborne event. It’s just a fact. 

The Sunny Coaster’s blessed-out slob was higher, harder, and more tech than Italo Ferreira’s winning spin by any conventional standard. We saw it, you saw it, even competitors Harry Bryant and Eithan Osborne, and the Red Bull Airborne founder, Josh Kerr, saw it. Sadly it wasn’t our event to judge. 

Regardless of result, Reef’s run through the Quik Pro and Red Bull Airborne events are worth revisiting. A wildcard story, and especially one with the success of Mr. Heazlewood’s, is what makes competitive surfing not tennis. You never know who will come in and take down the number two athlete in the world (twice in a row).

On the other side of the QLD/NSW divide, we find Ms. Ivy Thomas, a 20-year-old who once dreamed of winning Titles like Steph but now spends her time caressing the soft walls of Rainbow Bay on her nine-oh log. 

“[I like to] go with the wave instead of going against it and trying to tear it to bits. It’s a lot nicer. A lot less stressful.”

Unlike Reef, Ivy loathes the Quik Pro and the unbearable traffic, in and out of the water, that it brings. She offers uncommon honesty and a real citrus-y bite to this Red Bull short.

Don’t be shy, click play.