Emerald Surf City: 2010 Shark Island Comp Finally Runs!

That's right! After 2 months (to the day!) of waiting, a clean pumping swell with offshore winds was delivered! It was a beautiful Saturday the 14th of August that greeted the competitors of the Fluidzone Shark Island Challenge yesterday morning. With light offshore winds, a blue sky, and clean pumping 4-5ft of SSE swell, the event was called ON.
First heat saw a showdown between three of the most outstanding locals, John Showell, Andrew Lester, and Adam "Wingnut" Smith, and WA star Ryan Hardy. Hardy took out the heat, and Lester got through in second place.
The second heat was Damian King, Jase Finlay, Jones Russell (In place of Jared Houston) and Dave Winchester. Winny won a very close heat, with Kingy making it through the heat on a countback, just managing to overcome a charging Jones Russell, who was in the event due to Jared Houston having to head home to South Africa 3 days earlier to sort out visa's for his upcoming World Tour assault in Europe.
The third heat saw Nick Ormerod (replacing Michael Novy due to injury), Sam Strachan, Shaun Pyne and Brendon Newton fighting it out. Once again this was a very close heat, with local hellman Shaun Pyne winning, and Nick Ormerod just edging out local up and coming star Sam Strachan by 0.2!
The fourth and final heat saw Emerald's Glen Sullivan take on 2 x World Champ Ben Player, Dallas Singer (in place of Thomas Robinson) and Dan Worsely from South Africa. Dan flew out of the blocks with a big score early in the heat, but couldn't find a second score to back it up. Dallas and Ben Player progressed through to the semi finals.
The first semi was again an amazing prospect, with Andrew Lester, Ryan Hardy, Damian King and Dave Winchester. These guys are arguably 4 of the best riders in the world! It was a hard fought exchanged between these guys, with the lead changing multiple times during the heat. The judges were faced with a tough job to separate the scores, with Hardy and Kingy proceeding to the final, narrowly defeating Lester and Winny.
The second semi saw local hope Shaun Pyne take on Nick Ormerod, Ben Player and Dallas Singer. Pyneo managed to keep the local's hopes alive coming through the semi in second place behind Ben Player.
This left a final for the ages, with 4 world titles shared between Kingy and Benny, as well as Hardy being arguably the best and most stylish rider of his generation, and local self confessed hellman Shaun Pyne. The waves unfortunately slowed down a bit for the final, but there were still plenty of contestable waves and air bowls to be had. Hardy was performing several moves on each waves, along with getting deep heavy barrels. He had one wave where he did a flip out of the Peak barrel, straight into a forward spin, backdooring Surge, and finishing with a large invert. This would have been the move of the contest, but Benny had other ideas. He quickly followed this up with a massive ramp, where he launched a massive air forward, which gave him perfect 10's and the move of the comp. He unfortunately couldn't find a big enough second score to give him the title. Kingy and Pyneo were simply out-surfed in the final by Hardy and Ben, with Hardy taking out the 2010 Fluidzone Shark Island Challenge.
Dave Ballard was awarded the best barrel, and also winner of the locals expression session, which also included Christian "Rissole" Riguccini, Tristan Barfield, Mark Fordham, and Des Govender. This was held between the second semi final and the final, and saw some great riding by the locals, who showed how the Island should be ridden.
A big thanks goes out to Contest Director Alex Leon, and everyone else who made this comp possible! Cheers guys!

Below are a couple of framegrabs from our filmer Rich Lornie, who was in the water for the entire event. You will be able to see the footage of the Island event on his upcoming DVD titled Chout!. Check Out his teaser below as well.