Thursday, May 15, 2008: TEAHUPOO, Tahiti Brazilian wildcard Bruno Santos has defeated local wildcard Manoa Drollet (PYF) to win the Billabong Pro Tahiti and become the first Brazilian to win an ASP World Tour event in five years. “I’m really happy, my dreams just came true,” Santos said. “Today is not the perfect day to surf the final, but I don’t care I’m still happy. It’s still the best day of my life.” Santos, who earned his spot in the Billabong Pro Tahiti with a runner-up finish i… Continue
The Billabong Pro Tahiti Highlights
Billabong Pro Tahiti Final Match-Up: Bruno Santos 9.16 (Bra) vs. Manoa Drollet (PYF) 6.83
Billabong Pro Tahiti Semifinal Results:
Heat 1: Manoa Drollet 18.33 (PYF) vs. Joel Parkinson (Aus) 10.27
Heat 2: Bruno Santos (Bra) vs. CJ Hobgood (USA)
Billabong Pro Tahiti Quarterfinal Results:
Heat 1: Joel Parkinson 16.33 (Aus) vs. Andy Irons (Haw) 6.14
Heat 2: Manoa Drollet 17.84 (PYF) vs. Adrian Buchan (Aus) 9.83
Heat 3: Bruno Santos 9.83 (Bra) vs. Adriano de Souza (Bra) 9.03
Heat 4: CJ Hobgood 15.00 (USA) vs. Bruce Irons (Haw) 10.16
Billabong Pro Tahiti Round 4 Results:
Heat 1: Andy Irons (Haw) 18.93 vs. Luke Stedman (Aus) 13.26
Heat 2: Joel Parkinson (Aus) 18.50 vs. Dane Reynolds (USA) 8.17
Heat 3: Adrian Buchan (Aus) 15.50 vs. Dean Morrison (Aus) 14.50
Heat 4: Manoa Drollet (PYF) 15.00 vs. Tom Whitaker (Aus) 5.33
Heat 5: Bruno Santos (Bra)15.34 vs. Tim Reyes (USA) 3.70
Heat 6: Adriano de Souza 12.50 (Bra) vs. Kai Ottan (Aus) 10.84
Heat 7: CJ Hobgood 9.00 (USA) vs. Chris Ward(USA) 2.10
Heat 8: Bruce Irons 15.16 (Haw)
vs. Mikael Picon (Fra) 8.73
Billabong Pro Tahiti Round 3 Results:
Heat 1: Andy Irons 15.50 (HAW) vs. Royden Bryson (ZAF) 12.47
Heat 2: Luke Stedman (AUS) 17.53 vs. Jay Thompson (AUS) 12.40
Heat 3: Dane Reynolds (USA)18.17 vs. Jordy Smith (ZAF) 12.23
Heat 4: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 13.06 vs. Tiago Pires (POR) 10.00
Heat 5: Dean Morrison (AUS) 17.94 vs. Michael Campbell (AUS) 15.00
Heat 6: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 18.63 vs. Ben Bourgeois (USA) 16.40
Heat 7: Tom Whitaker (AUS) 17.66 vs. Dayyan Neve (AUS) 11.37
Heat 8: Manoa Drollet (PYF) 14.00 vs. Kelly Slater USA 9.83
Heat 9: Bruno Santos (BRA) vs. Taj Burrow (AUS)
Heat 10: Tim Reyes (USA) 16.74 vs. Pancho Sullivan (HAW) 12.33
Heat 11: Kai Otton (AUS) 16.94 vs. Heitor Alves (BRA) 9.4
Heat 12: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 17.83 vs. Daniel Wills (AUS) 9.17
Heat 13: Chris Ward (USA) 19.17 vs. Bede Durbidge (AUS) 7.3
Heat 14: CJ Hobgood (USA) 19.64 vs. Luke Munro (AUS) 14.06
Heat 15: Mikael Picon (FRA) 11.27 vs. Bobby Martinez (USA) 6.93
Heat 16: Bruce Irons (HAW) 18.17 vs. Taylor Knox (USA) 16.34
Billabong Pro Tahiti Round 2 Results:
Heat 1: Kelly Slater (USA) 18.70, Jamie O'Brien (HAW) 13.90
Heat 2: Bruno Santos (BRA) 10.00, Mick Fanning (AUS) 9.17
Heat 3: Bede Durbidge (AUS) 13.74, Nic Muscroft (AUS) 2.97
Heat 4: Chris Ward (USA) 14.50, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 12.90
Heat 5: Taylor Knox (USA) 11.83, Aritz Aranburu (EUK) 7.44
Heat 6: Dane Reynolds (USA) 14.50 vs. Travis Logie (ZAF) 12.26
Heat 7: Royden Bryson (ZAF) 13.33 vs. Neco Padaratz (BRA) 9.60
Heat 8: C.J. Hobgood (USA) 16.67 vs. Ricky Basnett (ZAF) 6.17
Heat 9: Tom Whitaker (AUS) 15.84 vs. Daniel Ross (AUS) 9.40
Heat 10: Mikael Picon (FRA) 15.07 9.83 vs. Ben Dunn (AUS)
Heat 11: Tim Reyes (USA) 10.50 vs. Jihad Khodr (BRA) 5.53
Heat 12: Ben Bourgeois (USA) 17.00 vs. Roy Powers (HAW) 10.00
Heat 13: Bruce Irons (HAW) 18.33 vs. Leonardo Neves (BRA) 16.9
Heat 14: Luke Munro (AUS) 17.76 vs. Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) 17.24
Heat 15: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Rodrigo Dornelles (BRA) 11.17
Heat 16: Jay Thompson 17.10 (AUS) vs. Kieren Perrow (AUS) 16.67
Billabong Pro Tahiti 2008 Surfing Pictures. Credit ASP Tostee
Brazilian wildcard Bruno Santos has defeated local wildcard Manoa Drollet (PYF) to win the Billabong Pro Tahiti and become the first Brazilian to win an ASP World Tour event in five years.
Santos, who earned his spot in the Billabong Pro Tahiti with a runner-up finish in the Air Tahiti Nui VonZipper Trials held prior to the main event, got the better of local Teahupoo specialist Drollet in their low scoring affair. Santos beat Drollet 9.16 to 6.83 on a borrowed surfboard in inconsistent three-foot (one metre) waves.
Santos defeated last year's World No. 1 Mick Fanning (AUS), World No. 2 Taj Burrow and 2001 ASP World Champion C.J. Hobgood (USA), among others, en route to his victory over Drollet.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008: TEAHUPOO, Tahiti Eight-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater (USA) and last year’s World No. 2 Taj Burrow (AUS) were Round 3 casualties to Billabong Pro Tahiti wildcards today. Bruno Santos (BRA), who eliminated reigning World Champion Mick Fanning (AUS) in a tight heat yesterday, beat Burrow in a much more convincing fashion today when he earned an early 8.33 to take a lead he never relinquished. “It’s so good to surf against the best surfers and beat the guys,” Santo… Continue
Wednesday, May 14, 2008: TEAHUPOO, Tahiti Round 2 of the Billabong Pro Tahiti will resume at 6:30am today. Four to six foot (two metre) waves akin to those enjoyed by the ASP Top 45 yesterday are still on offer at Teahupoo. Twenty-one heats of competition were held yesterday and event officials will endeavor to run 25 more heats today. Heats will be 25-minutes in duration. The first heat of the day, Heat 6 of… Continue
Tuesday, May 13, 2008: TEAHUPOO, Tahiti Reigning ASP World Champion Mick Fanning (AUS) suffered his first last place finish in two years at the Billabong Pro Tahiti this afternoon. After waiting for six days to commence competition, all of Round 1 and the first five heats of Round 2 were run in perfect four to six foot waves at Teahupoo today. Fanning was relegated to the sudden death round after finishing a t… Continue
Tuesday, May 13, 2008: TEAHUPOO, Tahiti Round 1 of the Billabong Pro Tahiti – Stop No. 3 of 11 on the ASP World Tour – will commence in clean three foot (one metre) waves at 7am this morning. Dean Morrison (AUS), Jordy Smith (ZAF) and Ricky Basnett (ZAF) are in the first heat of the day. Heats will be 30-minutes in duration. Event officials are aiming to wrap up Round 1 by approximately 3pm, at which point the… Continue
Posted on May 13th, 2008 at 12:07pm
Billabong Pro Tahiti Round 1 Highlights
Billabong Pro Tahiti Off Again Today Contest to Start 7AM Tuesday Morning
Monday, May 121, 2008: TEAHUPOO, Tahiti The Billabong Pro Tahiti is off again today due to lack of swell. Contest Director, Luke Egan is call for a 7AM start tomorrow morning swell or not.
Sunday, May 11, 2008: TEAHUPOO, Tahiti The Billabong Pro Tahiti may be taking its time to get off the ground, but the world’s best surfers are finding plenty of ways to entertain themselves in the interim. They will have to do it all over again today – the Billabong Pro Tahiti has been called off this morning. According to official Billabong Pro Tahiti surf forecasters Surfline, conditions on Tuesday and Wedne… Continue
Saturday, May 10, 2008 : TEAHUPOO, Tahiti As expected, the Billabong Pro Tahiti is off again today. Event officials are not expecting to run Round 1 until Monday or Tuesday, but monitor the conditions each morning nonetheless. Should conditions be contestable, they would not hesitate to lengthen heat times and commence competition. Brazil’s Leonardo Neves is among the surfers seeded in early heats who must be… Continue
Friday, May 9, 2008 - TEAHUPOO, Tahiti The Billabong Pro Tahiti will not run today, Friday, May 9, 2008. The small waves on offer at Teahupoo this morning are inadequate for ASP World Tour competition and there are nine more days in which to run the four days of competition it will take to crown a Billabong Pro Tahiti champion. According to Kevin Wallis of Surfline, conditions are expected to stay small throug… Continue
Thursday, May 8, 2008 - TEAHUPOO, Tahiti Today is the first of an 11-day waiting period for the Billabong Pro Tahiti but the ASP Top 45 and event wildcards will not paddle out for their Round 1 heats today. Contest Director Luke Egan eyed conditions all morning before opting to call things off for the day. "We had a good look at it and we are opting not to run today,” Egan said. “I watched it for an hour last… Continue
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 - TEAHUPOO, Tahiti The waiting period for the Billabong Pro Tahiti – Stop No. 3 of 11 on the 2008 ASP World Tour – starts tomorrow, May 8, 2008. According to contest director and former ASP Top 45 surfer Luke Egan, the action could commence right away. “I had a dream last night that we were going to get a swell like we did for the trials but then I woke up to the reality that I don’t thi… Continue
Monday 28th April 2008: Teahupoo, Tahiti HAWAIIAN hot-shot Jamie O’Brien, 24, has added another prestigious title to his list of achievements by winning the Air Tahiti Nui – Von Zipper Trials in heaving 6-8ft slabs at Teahupoo in Tahiti.
TRANSPORTATION: Rent a car and have a boatman lined up. Good distance between the airport and the end of the road, and from there, it’s either a two mile paddle or a two minute boat ride - you decide.
ATTITUDE: Don’t bother bringing any because the wave is the one with the attitude here. Half the surfers are shaking in their shorts, the other half are shaking their heads in disbelief, and those in the channel are happy as clams - unless of course one of the sets swings wide, then they’re all buggered.
THE WAVE: Breaking 700 metres out to sea, “Chopes”, as the break is affectionately known, is one of Mother Nature’s masterpieces. The old lady reckoned placing a 100 metre drop-off just 50 metres away from a half-moon-shaped reef would create a phenomenon… and she was right. This treacherous, left to right peeling reef-break boasts thick, bone-crushing barrels accessible only via a very-vertical takeoff. Once standing upright all surfers need to do is survive being spat out of the tube 50 metres later and then avoid the teeth of the razor sharp reef which sits high and dry directly in front of the wave.
Billabong Pro Teahupoo Wipeouts
PERKS: Spend a day taming Teahupoo with your mates and you’ll likely reckon you can save the world next time the need arises.
PERILS: This wave has claimed lives in the past and comes eerily close to doing so on a regular basis.
APRES SURF: You survive a session out here, just walking around feels like a party. Not much in the way of nightlife but there’s always plenty of very friendly locals who are keen for a chin-wag.
ASP WORLD TOUR HISTORY: Beginning as an ASP WQS early in the peice then evolving into a WCT a few years later. Billabong joined the party in 1999 and the best of the best have been shaking in their shorts since.
NOTABLE: First off, there’s not much that’s not notable about this wave, but the most recent record there was set by Slater, who surfed the perfect heat, scoring the first-ever 20 out of a possible 20 points against Damien Hobgood during the final of the 2005 Billabong Pro Tahiti. Hobgood would have his revenge though, claiming the Billabong Pro Tahiti in 2007.
PAST BILLABONG PRO TEAHUPOO CHAMPS:
2007: Damien Hobgood (USA)
2006: Bobby Martinez (USA)
2005: Kelly Slater (USA)
2004: CJ Hobgood (USA)
2003: Kelly Slater (USA)
2002: Andy Irons (HAW)
2001: Cory Lopez (USA)
2000: Kelly Slater (USA)
1999: Mark Occhilupo (AUS)
BILLABONG PRO TEAHUPOO 2008
