Julian Wilson Given Wildcard to ASP 6-Star SriLankan Airlines Pro at Arugam Bay ARUGAM BAY, Sri Lanka (Wednesday, June 9, 2010) – A fully fit and recovered Julian Wilson (Australia) is ready to launch himself onto the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Star Tour at next week’s ASP 6-Star SriLankan Airlines Pro which will run at the famous Arugam Bay pointbreak on Sri Lanka’s superb south east coast.
Wilson is one of the world’s most exciting, progressive, new-age surfers capable of outstanding performances in all conditions.
A serious ankle injury and subsequent operation severely disrupted his 2010 year-to-date, but he has recovered and the 22-year-old, Queensland surfer is looking forward to tackling the ASP tour with the ultimate aim of qualifying onto the elite ASP Dream Tour.
“Before this season began I set a high goal to qualify, but the injury certainly set me back a fair way and has taken close to four months to heal,” said Wilson.
“Over the past month, it has rapidly improved and I’ve edged my way back into competition with events in the USA and Brazil last month and right now coming into Sri Lanka I feel like I’m finally prepared and ready to go.”
“There’s a lot of the ASP qualifying season to go this year and I have not ruled out the possibility of chasing ASP World Tour 2011 qualification it’s everyone’s ambition to make that tour and 2010 was meant to be my first full season dedicated to chasing that tour, and while I’ve had a set back, right now I’m back and set to surf my best so we’ll see what happens.”
As an ideal lead up Wilson just spent a week in Western Australia surfing with Taj Burrow and Mick Fanning.
The righthand sand-bottom point waves at Arugam Bay may well have characteristics that are similar to the perfect points around Noosa which is close to where Wilson lives and has honed his surfing.
“None of us know this wave at Arugam Bay, but we’ve heard it’s a great high performance set-up so it’s exciting to be heading to a new location and I’m very grateful to accept a wild card into this event, added Wilson.
Remaining wildcards will be announced in the coming few days along with a fore on likely conditions for this exciting new quality event which s in just over one weeks time.
The line-up for this year’s event is outstanding and a few of the interesting high seeded surfers competing include Adriano de Souza (Bra), current world number four rated surfer Jadson Andre (Bra), former ASP world champion Sunny Garcia (Hawaii), Japan’s Masatoshi Ohno, South Africa’s Royden Bryson and David Weare, Spain’s Hodei Collarzo and Kolohe Andino (USA).
The SriLankan Airlines Pro will be live web and will include a quality produced and globally distributed television show along with television newsfeeds distributed internationally throughout the event as well as highest quality digital images focusing on the event, the environment, wildlife and of course the abundance of surf from the region.
