World’s Best Surfers Prepare for Battle at Billabong Pipe Masters in Honor of Andy Irons
The Banzai Pipeline in all its glory awaits the world’s best surfers for the 2011 Billabong Pipe Masters in Honor of Andy Irons.
Kelly Slater (USA), 39, clinched a historic 11th ASP World Title at the previous event in San Francisco and the focus for this Billabong Pipe Masters will be the Vans Triple Crown Title (an ASP Specialty Series) and the requalification campaigns of the world’s best surfers.
John John Florence (HAW), 18, newcomer to the elite ASP Top 34 after the September rotation, is currently leading the hunt for the 2011 Vans Triple Crown Title after an impressive win at Sunset last week.
Mick Fanning (AUS), 30, and defending Billabong Pipe Masters champion Jeremy Flores (FRA), 23, have withdrawn from competition due to injury and have been replaced by first alternates C.J. Hobgood (USA), 32, and Adam Melling (AUS), 26, respectively.
Due to the expanded competition at Pipeline, the ASP has awarded two wildcard spots to surfers next in line on the ASP World Rankings, Kolohe Andino (USA), 17, and Willian Cardoso (BRA). Both surfers will receive ASP World Rankings points for their campaigns at the Billabong Pipeline Masters.
BILLABONG PIPE MASTERS PRESS CONFERENCE:
Who: Kelly Slater, Joel Parkinson, Taj Burrow, Gabriel Medina, Jeremy Flores, John John Florence, Bruce Irons
When: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 – 11am sharp
Where: Surfer Bar, Turtle Bay Resort
The Billabong Pipe Masters in Memory of Andy Irons will run from December 8 – 20, 2011 and will be webcast LIVE via http://vanstriplecrownofsurfing.com/billabongpipemasters2011
For additional information log on to www.aspworldtour.com
VANS TRIPLE CROWN TOP 3 (Heading into Billabong Pipe Masters):
1. John John Florence (HAW) 9,780 pts
2. Adam Melling (AUS) 9,650 pts
3. Michel Bourez (PYF) 8,480 pts
ASP WORLD TITLE TOP 5 (Heading into Billabong Pipe Masters):
1. Kelly Slater (USA) 63,350 pts
2. Joel Parkinson (AUS) 48,600 pts
3. Owen Wright (AUS) 47,900 pts
4. Adriano de Souza (BRA) 43,700 pts
5. Taj Burrow (AUS) 42,200 pts
Category: All ASP News, ASP World Tour News
Pipe = 3×1 : Masters + Triple Crown + World Tour, isn’t?
Its ridiculous! Like William said above, why dont ASP just delivery the trophy to some hawaiian specialist right now and just dont make tha comp???
LOL
sims like hawaiians adapted the comp rules 4 their own benefit, isnt?!
Pipe is a Triple Crown, not only a World Tour event – isn’t?
“Expanded field to acommodate the talented list of Hawaiian Pipeline specialists”. OK.
What is seed 48?????, are we back to the 80´s with top 48???? why change the rules in the last event??? Aren´t some athletes tring to requalify????
Didn´t the change occured to optimize the swell window, reducing the number of surfers to 32????
Why the bottom ranked surfers will have to compete against an Ultra specialist who surf the spot everyday (and dont let any haole surf-it), instead of surfing agaist a top ranked surfers as in everry other stop of the tour???? arent only 3 wildcards permitted????
thank-you if you answer some of these questions.
u make a good point dude…ive wondered the same thing for yrs now…
yeah – what he said
Pipe is it’s own story, always has been, the super bowl of our sport, and a lot of the wildcards and trials winners are more qualified and more skilled out there then a lot of the top 32 at this spot, most of them live and breath Pipe. Definately understand your points about the tour “rules”. In the super bowl of surfing, you just simply need to have the best of the best competing out there. It’s changed a bit to make the Pipe event similar to how it’s always been and enable guys who have put their time in out there day in day out a shot at being a “pipe master” which is more important to many of these guys then the world title. It’s kind of like the ASP is included in the Pipe Masters event, which is a privilege for them, so maybe bending the format a bit makes a sense. It’s going to be big this year. Go there and check it out sometime. One of a kind.
agree! good point!