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Kelly
Slater almost became the first repeat winner in the Quiksilver In Memory Of
Eddie Aikau’s illustrious 25-year history — until soft-spoken San Clemente, CA, lad Greg Long
came from behind in the final heat of the contest to score an emotional and
profitable $55,000 victory.
By now you’ve seen the jaw-dropping photos, read the
detailed on-the-beach reports, and marveled at the countless videos of 50-foot
clean-up sets. So here’s the basics: Monday dawned with overcast skies, a light
drizzle in the air, and breezy onshore conditions, making the sustained 40-foot
sets lighting up Waimea Bay somehow look angrier than they already were.
Contest Director George Downing made the controversial call to wait until
Tuesday to try and run the event, but when the sun rose and a cool offshore
wind filtered down from the mountains behind Waimea Bay yesterday, every one
present knew Tuesday would be The Day. Downing announced that “Today, Eddie
will go,” tens of thousands of surfing fans flocked to every available inch of
sand, and the ASP-sanctioned Quiksilver In Memory Of Eddie Aikau got underway
for the first time in five years.
Oh, and about the format: 28 invitees were broken
into four heats of seven surfers each. All four heats surfed once in the
morning and once in the afternoon. Best four waves, with scores out of 100, were
added up to determine the winner.
Santa Cruz, CA, hellman Peter Mel emerged from Heat
One with a tenuous lead, but was quick to downplay it upon entering the live
broadcast booth immediately afterward. Kelly Slater, the only East Coaster on
the Eddie invitee and alternate lists, paddled out in Heat Two with a host of
Hawaiian heavies, including Mark Healey, Reef McIntosh, Pancho Sullivan, and
elder statesman Clyde Aikau. Slater promptly pulled into a 20-foot barrel in
front of McIntosh — party waves weren’t outright encouraged, but in the
spirit of aloha were certainly tolerated — and got demolished, but on his
very next wave, Kelly streaked laterally across the Waimea bowl where most
surfers dropped straight to the bottom, and rode out the whitewater explosion all
the way to the shorebreak for a near-perfect 98. After that, Slater looked to
be the winner, with a seemingly insurmountable 290-point total accumulated in
the first round alone.
"One of the best days of surfing in my life, for
sure," Slater said. "I had a couple of my most memorable rides I've
ever had.” In between Rounds One and Two, webcast provocateurs Martin Potter
and Fred Pattachia got Kelly up in the announcer’s booth, where they proceeded
to heckle him about his inordinate collection of 1st-place hardware. When asked
whether he could find room for the 2009 Eddie trophy on his mantle, Slater scoffed
and said, “I’ll build a new house for this one.” That kind of prestige is only
reserved for the Eddie, which has now run a grand total of eight times in 25
years.
No one else came close to Kelly’s points total until
the final heat of the day, held after the tide had started to ebb and the bulk
of the waves looked to have passed. But with under an hour remaining in the
event, the swell pulsed again, bombarding Waimea Bay with a host of
35-foot-plus sets. California darkhorse Greg Long, who’s now won nearly every
paddle-in big-wave competition of note, nabbed three of his four counting
scores in those final minutes, including only the second perfect 100 in Eddie
history for a death-defying 40-foot drop. That put him only 70 points off
Slater’s total; after Chilean wildcard nabbed another perfect 100 for $10,000
and the Monster Drop Award, Long lodged a 71, leapfrogging from 2nd-place’s
$10,000 prizemoney to the behemoth 1st-place $55,000 check. Long also became
the first Californian to ever win the Quiksilver In Memory Of Eddie Aikau.
But don’t think Slater didn’t give credit where
credit was due: “That last heat was just pulsing with huge sets coming in,” he
said. “It had the biggest sets, and Greg won the whole contest with that one
heat." In true class-act form, Kelly finished, “There’s no one more
deserving [of this win] than Greg.”
RESULTS OF
THE 2009 QUIKSILVER IN MEMORY OF EDDIE AIKAU
1. Greg Long, 323 points, $55,000
2. Kelly Slater, 313, $10,000
3. Sunny Garcia, 292, $5000
4. Bruce Irons, 275, $3000
5. Ramon Navarro, 267, $2000
MONSTER
DROP AWARD
Ramon Navarro, $10,000
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