Taj Burrow defeats Matt Wilkinson to claim O’Neill Coldwater Classic title
Australia’s Taj Burrow took out the O’Neill Coldwater Classic, the ninth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, after defeating his compatriot Matt Wilkinson in the final that went down at Santa Cruz
in California, America, on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.
Clinching his second win in the season, Burrow made his way to sixth spot on the 2012 ASP World Championship Tour rankings.
“This win feels incredible,” Burrow said. “It happens sometimes where you never feel like you have the best heats. I was kind of in the zone. I never really had a good heat the whole event, but I still felt good. It’s such a tricky wave and I guess the only
thing that helped was my wave count. That Final was the battle of the back-ups. We both stacked it on a couple and we were in a fluster. Wilko (Matt Wilkinson) fell on that last one and he would have got the score, but I’ll take it.”
Passing through the initial rounds of the latest elite tour comfortably, the 34-year-old Australian eventually found himself pitted against the most in-form surfers during the quarter and semi-finals. He managed to prevail in both the battles to earn himself
a shot at the event title.
Wilkinson, on the other hand, was proving nothing short of formidable during the course of the event either and thus got himself into the final to take on Burrow for the overall victory.
The challenging waves on offer were expected to make the battle for top honours even more exciting as there were not too many opportunities for the two finalists to make their move.
As the final kicked-off, Burrow got down to business right away, locking his first business-wave in the opening minutes of the heat to post a 7.17 on the score-board.
As the heat progressed, the Australian added an additional 5.93 points to his account, which took him to a heat-total of 13.10 points.
Wilkinson got off to a slow start, but eventually managed to break free of the shackles through a 7.20-point ride.
Backing it up with a 5.50-point tide, he moved to a heat-total of 12.70 points, thus finishing 0.40 points behind the two-wave total of his rival.
The tenth and final stop of the 2012 ASP World Championship Tour, Billabong Pipe Masters, will go down at the famed Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii from December 8-12.
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