Kelly Slater dominates Yadin Nicol to claim 2011 Nike US Open of Surfing title
After a week of thrilling battles, the latest edition of Nike US Open of Surfing came down to the mother of all battles, the final on Saturday, August 7, at the Huntington Beach Pier, California.
America’s Kelly Slater triumphed over Australia’s Yadin Nicol without really breaking a sweat, to become this year’s Nike US Open of Surfing Champion.
The 10-time Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Champion, Slater had entered the competition as a heavy favourite and continued to remain one of the strongest contenders for the title throughout the course of the event. The fact that he was
surfing in his own backyard, along with the local support and knowledge of the waves, was simply adding to the challenge for the rest of the surfers. Delivering one sensational performance after another, the Cocoa Beach-resident eventually made his way into
the final.
On the other hand, the 26-year-old Nicol had been failing to show consistent form, although he did manage to find his rhythm in the later stages of the competition to pass through the quarter-finals and semi-finals without a scratch.
As the final kicked off, the 39-year-old Slater wasted no time in asserting his dominance to make it pretty evident what the likely outcome of the contest would be. In the opening minutes of the heat, he locked a wave to pull off a sensational front-side
air-reverse to earn an 8.50. He soon followed it up with another impressive wave-score of 7.77 to finish with a heat-total of 16.27 points.
Nicol seemed to have gone completely blank after witnessing the onslaught by his rampaging rival. Completely misreading the conditions, the Australian kept waiting for his luck to shine, but the patience did not pay off as he had hoped for. He eventually
finished with a heat-total of 2.57 points, comprising of a 0.77 and 1.80-point wave, allowing his rival to walk away with a comfortable win.
Commenting on his rival’s disappointing performance in the Final, Slater said, “I guess Yadin (Nicol) wanted me to win because he didn’t catch any waves. I was just really frustrated for him because he was sitting out the back waiting for the big sets and
the big sets were close outs. The small ones he was just two far outside and I got them. I think what happened is I got the 8.50 to start and he was just going to be patient. If he got a good one he would have thrown a big rotator, but it just never came.”
During his post-Final interview, Nicol admitted his mistake but still felt really excited over making it into the finals to compete against Slater. While runner-up finish in the latest ASP Prime event moved him from the No.36 spot in the season standings
to the 27th spot, placing him inside the coveted ASP Top 32 mid-year cut, the Australian decided to put the celebrations on hold till the fate of the remaining two World Tour events is revealed.
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