Fronton Thoughts 2.
Cover photo: @secretpoints
Tanner is toast.
The coronation of the heir apparent will have to wait for another year. The man that Jay Reale had dubbed T-Mac just couldn’t get it going in his round 7 heat against Aitor Ojeda and an on fire Lewy Finnigan.
Lewy whipped the floor with the two other competitors and was a clear winner. Tanner looked tentative and only picked of two okayish rights for scores of 4 and 4.5 coming in to the final 5 minutes of the heat. Despite sitting in second place as the time ticked down, you could just sense that he was there for the beating if Aitor could just find the right wave himself. The fact that all of the riders stuck to the right handers when young gun David Perez Miranda had just demolished the previous heat going left was confusing.
Indeed, it was the final exchange on the lefts between Tanner and Aitor that ultimately decided the heat, and probably this year’s world title race. Aitor went first, picking up a nice mid sized barrel into a round roll, sliding down the wave foam to complete the ride, grab a 5.75 as his second scoring wave and propel himself into second place.
On the wave behind Tanner launched himself into the kind of flip that he shelves for fun and would have easily bested his highest score. However, being the second wave of the set combined with the dropping Fronton tide, most of the water had sucked off the reef leading to Tanner landing flat and unable to ride out of the wave, ending his world title hopes.
David Perez-Miranda is a future star.
Speaking of Perez-Miranda, last year’s Pro-junior champion has surfed all the way from round 1 into finals contention. In his round 8 heat he bested current world champ and tour leader Tristan Roberts who never really looked like catching the Portuguese pocket rocket. David fleeced the inside Fronton lefts, ripping a barrel to air forward combo that was sublime. Mark down his name for the future.
Da Faq is wrong with Roberts?
After scraping through his round 8 heat behind Davo Perez Miranda, the commentary team let slip that Tristan was seen in the back of an Ambulance. No other details available yet, but rest assured your intrepid Infoamed team are on the case.
Marli the motivator?
In a similar vein, Oz’s very own Marli Dunn surfed deep into the comp from round 1. Entering the contest on whim while travelling through Europe (check out Atlantic migrations if you haven’t already done so) the Aussie was ripping through his heats until coming unstuck in the same heat mentioned above.
The question is now, will Marli’s performance inspire the new generation of Australia’s best riders to have a crack at a few world tour events next year, or will the tyranny of distance, prestige and comfortability continue to reduce the participation of Australian riders to the role of novelty in a sea of South American and European riders?
Hands in the air!
As the contest moves towards the pointing end and riders ambitions rise, the desire to get through a heat by any means necessary rises. The result? A few suss claims trying to pull the wool over the judges eyes and sell a standard wave as a good to great wave. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, but watching guys slinging their hands up and waving wildly like they caught the best wave of their life after and okay tube to standard roll is…yer…not great.
Jay is UnReale.
Yes we know it’s a cliche pun but Jay Reale has been an inspired addition to the IBC commentary team. Professional, well spoken, insightful and even a little bilingual! Nothing against the other members of the commentary team, and again perhaps it’s a cultural class, but he’s head and shoulders above the others. Sign him up for the full tour next year IBC peoples!
