One day, the waves are way too big, the next day the waves are too choppy, and then on the first day of Pipe Pro, the waves aren’t perfect, but they’ll do.
The Volcom Pipe Pro is held at Banzai Pipeline and is an ASP 5-star World Qualifying Series (WQS) event. Surfers come from all over the world and tackle the most death defying waves at Pipe, competing for $130,000 USD in prize money and ratings for the 2014 season. After an exciting winter, fans were excited to see the competition up and running.
This year’s 5th annual Volcom Pipe Pro marked the Aloha State’s first ASP competition of 2014. The crowds were overjoyed with Kelly Slater’s second win this year, John John Florence’s upset against Evan Geiselman, and Zeke Lau’s attempt to gain entry into another Pipe Masters.
Slater closed and won the competition with a score of 15.70 (9.53 + 6.17). Backdoor waves are usually more challenging, but Slater surfed it like he could do it with his eyes closed. He started the final heat with a slick backdoor exit, giving him a 9.53.
Unfortunately, a single backdoor wave was not enough for the Michael Jordan of surfing. He went after another backdoor exit wave that gave him a 6.17 — not as high of a score, but enough to win the event before any other surfers caught a wave.
By the end of the day, Slater had owned 5 of the top 10 scores of the competition (10, 9.83, 9.77, 9.73, and 9.53).
In his post-heat interview with Volcom, Slater said, “This was some of the best Pipe I’ve ever surfed in my life. There were a couple waves that I got right in that little sweet spot where you can just barely make the wave. It did feel like there was definitely some room out there to work on things and the opportunity was there because when the wave gets really intense, you’ve got to just totally commit.”
Pipeline’s own, Florence, was not as prepared as Slater. Seeded in Heat 9 on Day 2 were Florence, Geiselman, Michael February and Parker Coffin. Right from the start, Geiselman caught his first wave for the competition and nailed a score of 9.63. With that fire and confidence, Geiselman launched into his second wave with a strong take–off and pulled another solid score of 8.90.
Geiselman showed the best scores of the day before his competition was able to gain scores worth keeping at all. Florence was only able to total a score of 7.07, which knocked him completely out of the competition and Geiselman into the spotlight.
Like Florence, Hawaii’s Lau was also knocked out of the event earlier than most had hoped. But do not shrug him off, becaue he is Hawaii’s best-anticipated 2015 World Championship Tour hopeful.
After recently winning the Vans World Cup at Sunset in 2013, and an appearance at Pipe Pro, Lau’s competitive drive will push him towards success. “To me, a world championship is everything. If you want it that bad, then you’ll do whatever it takes to get it.” With an impressive track record and in-it-to-win-it mindset, Zeke’s words come with promise for the rest of 2014.