Kelly Slater defeats Owen Wright to clinch Billabong Pro Tahiti title – 2011 ASP World Tour
After featuring a series of sensational battles over the past week, the fifth stop of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, Billabong Pro Tahiti, came down to an exciting finish on Monday, August 29, at Teahupo’o in Taiarapu, Tahiti.
After an extremely intense battle, it was veteran Kelly Slater who walked away with the event title by defeating Australia’s Owen Wright.
The 21-year-old Wright had been nothing but phenomenal throughout the course of the event but he was unable to take down his formidable opponent, Slater. A 10-time ASP World Champion, the Florida-based Slater had shown no significant flaws in his performance
while taking on his fellow elite ASP surfers in what were unarguably some of the best surfing conditions the World Tour had seen this year.
As the Final kicked off in clean four-to-six foot waves, the 39-year-old Slater went to work early and got himself a big juicy wave to exhibit his superior back-hand tube riding, adding an impressive 9.50 to his account. Wright successfully kept the pressure
from mounting by responding with a 7.83 point wave within a few minutes and kept his chances of clinching victory alive.
Almost halfway through the 30-minute heat, Slater locked yet another good-looking wave and pulled off a series of exquisite tricks, earning 8.93 points for the effort and moving to a heat-total of 18.43 points.
The young Australian had no intention of giving up just yet and a determined effort allowed him to score 9.27 points off a wave, taking him to a two-wave total of 17.10 points. He kept the desperate hunt going but was unable to improve on his score, eventually
getting forced to embrace defeat and conceding victory to the surfing icon, Slater.
Commenting on the Final during his post-Final interview, Slater said, “In the Final, I fell on a couple of waves that were maybe better than what I ended up getting scored on. It put the pressure on me, and took the pressure off him [Wright]. He got that
really big one at the end that could have gotten pretty close to the score. These are the best conditions this event has ever run in. It’s been a phenomenal week.”
Collecting the 47th elite victory of his career and second win in the ASP World Tour season, Slater moved back to top on the ASP World Title rankings. With the conclusion of the Billabong Pro Tahiti, six more events are left before the latest
ASP World Champion is decided. However, if Slater continues to maintain his current form, the new champion may be revealed well before the season actually wraps up.
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