Day One Quiksilver Pro Snapper

Round One Highlights




Six-eighteen A.M. and Kieren Perrow, ASP surfer representative, is standing dripping, board in hand, at the top of the stairs in front of Rainbow Bay Surf Club.

“It’s a bit gutless,” he tells contest director Rod Brooks. “But yeah, gotta go!”

“7.30,” says Rod.

“Yep, 7.30.” And Kieren runs off to get changed.

Isn’t there some sort of meeting to decide these things?

“We just had it,” says Rod.

Yep, the 2011 ASP World Title year has just kicked off, with all the ceremony of a local club pointscore.

This is the grim truth, readers. The World Tour is just a massively budgeted club contest.

Julian Wilson just did it today, taking the top spot in round one heat one. Pic ASP Kirstin.

And I KNOW the truth, because I am on the Inside here. Yes. I have accepted an offer of employment at the Quiksilver Pro as part of the broadcast commentary team, and as a result I have been launched into the extraordinary machinery of the modern surf industrial complex. I flew up here last night, as an honoured guest on one of our very special domestic airlines, whom I will not name for fear it may somehow clash with one of the numerous backup sponsors of this event. I was met at Coolie airport by the radiant Mrs Kate Bain, who’d booked said flight and the luxury accommodation overlooking the Superbank.

Holy crap. Someone met me at the airport!!! This is NOT like travelling ASL style.

In the rarefied world of Quiksilver marketing, Mrs Bain is like Moneypenny and James Bond rolled into one. I can’t believe I am writing about her. She’ll probably shoot me with a .22 Beretta or a Walther PPK.

“The Midget’s having a meltdown,” she grinned. “Midget” being her fond nickname for Quik’s digital maestro, Chris Smith, a man distinguished by the fact that at any one time, unless he is asleep, you can see all the whites of his eyes at once. It was 10pm and the Midget was still in lockdown at the contest site with a couple of his colleagues trying to load some sort of mad graphics software into the broadcast computer system. Ever since the non-Eddie had thrown a huge curve ball into his schedule a month back, Smith had been living on coffee and adrenalin.

Pro surfing is super fun for a lot of people.

"This morning I had the perfect mix of nerves and excitement," Taj Burrow said after his round one win. Pic ASP/Robo.

Nonetheless, at 5.30 on contest day Smith was wide awake. Hell, maybe he didn’t even sleep. By the time I’d arisen from the feather bed with down pillows that through the small hours had been cooled by Quiksilver slave girls wielding palm fronds shorn from an organic plantation in the Gold Coast hinterland, the Rainbow Bay SLSC was packed with event employees.

Four hundred people, counting the surfers, are working on the contest. About a third are full-time Quik employees, the rest are recurrent contractors, many of whom have been working on the Snapper contest for years. “It makes it easy to run,” Brooks told me. “Everyone knows their job.”

Joel Parkinson doing his best impression of the eagle on Kirra hill. Pic ASP/Robo.

Everyone but me, that is. I don’t mind saying the broadcast commentary booth scared the crap out of me. Behind all the giant posters of Kelly’s head and the plastic screens and the mildly scowling security guards, the entire event site is basically a bunch of Coates Hire sheds tangled up in masses of Ethernet cabling and labelled with enigmatic names: “Chook Pen”, “Sound”, “Food Chaplain”. Inside one of these sheds is a terrible scene resembling a sci-fi operating theatre. Amid the darkness, lights, cameras and monitors peer down at their commentator prey with clinical disdain. The actual surfing might as well be happening on Mars.

Dusty Payne will take on Damo Hobgood in round two. Pic ASP/Robo.

In the midst of this insane Stanley Kubrick scenario, you sit with headphones on and watch a monitor, upon which Joel Parkinson or whoever is calmly ruining their opponents’ lives, and talk about it like everything is ENTIRELY NORMAL.

Not that science doesn’t have its uses, by the way. One of the most intriguing things at this million-dollar club contest is the VX GPS tracking devices with which the pros are being encouraged to fit themselves during heats. The devices provide read-outs of maximum wave speed and distance covered during heats. Mick Fanning racked up top speed this round with 39.1km/h, oo surprise surprise… but the truly intriguing thing is the distance measurement.

To wit: Parko, in his easy victory over Adriano de Souza and Alejo Muniz, covered a total of almost four kilometres in 30 minutes.

When did YOU last cover four kilometres in 30 minutes? Without sitting in your car, that is? Don’t tell me these surfers aren’t fit.

Kelly Slater's surfing and head shone today in round one. Pic ASP/Robo.

The surfing, oh yeah. That! The surfing was my big escape from everything else today. Mainly because the best surfer of the day was a 16-year-old girl. Tyler Wright’s form today was eviscerating, brutal and brilliant. Steph Gilmore was left in her wake along with everyone else. I’ve never seen a woman do a true Occ-style semi layback power cutback, ever. Tyler did three of ‘em, all with staggering panache, thrown off almost as an afterthought on waves she’d already obliterated using a turn range that if repeated enough through 2011, will surely prove the greatest challenge yet to Stephanie’s dominance.

Jordy Smith will be more focused than ever in 2011. "Noboby enjoys coming second," he quipped after being quizzed about last year. Pic ASP/Kirstin.

Beyond Ms Wright, everything else seemed normal. Incredibly effective and skilful, but normal. Julian, Mick, Taj, Jordy, Parko, and Owen skated through like the favourites they are. Kerrzy, Wilko, Dan Ross, Melling and Tiago looked inspired. Jeremy Flores withdrew thanks to a knee injury suffered the night before and which had nothing to do with the scene at Burleigh last weekend, about which your correspondent honestly could not give a flying fuck.

And Kelly Slater … well, Kelly won his heat and covered 2.5 kilometres in doing so. Which means he’s got 1.5 kilometres still in reserve.

Matt Banting lost today, but the wildcard turned some heads. Pic ASP/Kirstin.

There’s a reason why his head has been reproduced in four-metre-high billboards on the fascia of this event. And as I recline on the velvet couch that takes pride of place in this magnificent penthouse in which I have been ensconsed, Insider-style, for the duration of the Quiksilver Pro, I can’t help but think: for god’s sake, somebody kick his arse.

Snapper-azzi Day One Video Blog

QUIKSILVER PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Julian Wilson (AUS) 14.26, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.44, Heitor Alves (BRA) 6.57
Heat 2: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 15.67, Gabe Kling (USA) 12.27, Bede Durbidge (AUS) 12.03
Heat 3: Mick Fanning (AUS) 16.03, Bobby Martinez (USA) 12.57, Cory Lopez (USA) 7.90
Heat 4: Taj Burrow (AUS) 16.67, Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) 9.17, Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 9.10
Heat 5: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 16.07, Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 10.37, Mitch Crews (AUS) 11.07
Heat 6: Kelly Slater (USA) 13.93, Matt Banting (AUS) 11.34, Kai Otton (AUS) 6.70
Heat 7: Owen Wright (AUS) 12.83, Taylor Knox (USA) 11.46, Dusty Payne (HAW) 10.60
Heat 8: Josh Kerr (AUS) 11.70, Marc Lacomare (FRA) 9.87, Brett Simpson (USA) 7.77
Heat 9: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 15.00, Adriano de Souza (BRA), Alejo Muniz (BRA) 10.20
Heat 10: Daniel Ross (AUS), 13.00, Michel Bourez (PYF) 9.10, C.J. Hobgood (USA) 7.43
Heat 11: Adam Melling (AUS) 11.40, Kieren Perrow (AUS) 11.13, Chris Davidson (AUS) 10.73
Heat 12: Tiago Pires (PRT) 15.83, Jadson Andre (BRA)12.70, Damien Hobgood (USA) 11.77

QUIKSILVER PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Matt Banting (AUS)
Heat 2: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Mitch Crews (AUS)
Heat 3: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Marc Lacomare (FRA)
Heat 4: Michel Bourez (PYF) vs. Raoni Monteiro (BRA)
Heat 5: Chris Davidson (AUS) vs. Cory Lopez (USA)
Heat 6: Jadson Andre (BRA) vs. Gabe Kling (USA)
Heat 7: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Dusty Payne (HAW)
Heat 8: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. Alejo Muniz (BRA)
Heat 9: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)
Heat 10: Brett Simpson (USA) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 11: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. Fredrick Patacchia (HAW)
Heat 12: Heitor Alves (BRA) vs. Bobby Martinez (USA)

ROXY PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Jacqueline Silva (BRA) 13.37, Paige Hareb (NZL) 12.00, Sofia Mulanovich (PER) 10.86
Heat 2: Silvana Lima (BRA) 14.10, Pauline Ado (FRA) 13.83, Rebecca Woods (AUS) 8.30
Heat 3: Tyler Wright (AUS) 17.96, Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) 9.26, Sarah Mason (NZL) 6.36
Heat 4: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 16.03, Laura Enever (AUS) 11.83, Claire Bevilacqua (AUS) 10.36
Heat 5: Carissa Moore (HAW) 14.00, Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS) 7.43, Alana Blanchard (HAW) 6.84
Heat 6: Coco Ho (HAW) 14.66, Courtney Conlogue (USA) 13.80, Chelsea Hedges (AUS) 8.16

ROXY PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Rebecca Woods (AUS) vs. Courtney Conlogue (USA)
Heat 2: Paige Hareb (NZL) vs. Pauline Ado (FRA)
Heat 3: Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) vs. Sarah Mason (NZL)
Heat 4: Sofia Mulanovich (PER) vs. Claire Bevilacqua (AUS)
Heat 5: Chelsea Hedges (AUS) vs. Alana Blanchard (HAW)
Heat 6: Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS) vs. Laura Enever (AUS)