There is so much on the go, and with three-man heats, the pace is relentless.
It’s not always that easy out there however. Just ask Connor O’Leary. All he needed was a modest score of 5.74 against Frederico Morais from Portugal in heat 4 of round three to get into the lead.
We think O’Leary is a great surfer, and some of his backhand cracks during this event have been legendary. Huge, full commitment, full power backhand cracks for big rewards. He also seems a really nice guy. Understated, mellow, happy with life.
With ten minutes to go, O’Leary was in priority position, and with pumping surf, all he needed to do was pretty much get a good one and do a couple of decent turns. A situation that is perfectly in order for any Championship Tour surfer.
Things changed pretty quickly for the Cronulla surfer. He paddled for a good-looking mid-sized wave. It had a clean line to it, plenty of potential, but he missed it. He simply couldn't catch it. Morais took the priority.
O’Connor then paddled for an insider under Morais’ priority, caught it, and as the wave started lining up, instead of flying down the line to the money section at the Carpark, O’Leary inexplicably did a cutback, and as he bounced off the white-water, the wave just reeled away from him.
He kicked out and a massive set came through, and to finish off his heat O’Leary had to bail out in front of a set wave before the siren went and he was out of the game.
So it’s not all about 20-point heats. Jordy’s two rides were incredible though, and the reaction from the local supporters was quite amazing. It’s not often that spectators get to see 20-point heats, especially at an easy access wave like JBay. It usually happens at a place like Fiji, or Tahiti, when it is always about huge barrel rides. Those sorts of venues do not have local crowds, with the WSL usually water-based on a flotilla of boats.
The heat was a joy to watch, and Jordy was one very stoked surfer afterwards.
The Corona Open JBay has been an incredible event thus far, and there have been many accolades thus far. The set-up and infrastructure has been rated as the best in the world, the waves have been called the best ever for an event this year, and Shaun Tomson reckoned that today was quite possibly the greatest day of surfing in the long history of the JBay event. To put a twenty-point heat score down as well, was another great accolade for the event, as well as legendary stuff for the spectators.
So much so that the Italian Leonardo Fioravanti’s very decent heat score of 16.17 against Jordy gathered nary a mention from anyone. So much so that Julian Wilson’s ten-point ride and subsequent damaged board the heat after Jordy’s was also deemed not very noteworthy. In fact, the only other thing that was in any way exciting was the second last heat of the day – Jordy Julian and Filipe – getting stopped due to a shark sighting. A malo had arrived on the scene and was having some fun breaching about 100 meters further out than Filipe on the top of the point, and the event was called for the day.
Now the contest organisers have one massive problem on their hands – three more days of excellent surf on the cards, and only one day left of competition – the ultimate surf tournament problem.
