Good Day For South Africa

Today was a good day–if you’re South African, or would like someone besides Kelly to win this years world title. Say whatever you want about Kelly losing by .04 to Sean, but the truth is Kelly fell on his first wave and the best wave of the heat. At inconsistent J-Bay, there is no room for error and Kelly lost that heat mainly because of that wave. Plus Sean surfed two flawless set waves.

Before Kelly’s loss to Sean, Andy had looked like one of the few guys capable of taking down Kelly. Andy started off on fire again vs. Sean, but Sean never even blinked. With little time remaining and needing a score, Sean let Andy take a perfect set wave under his priority, in which Andy ripped all the way to the beach. What happened next, to the delight of the kazoo blowing soccer crazed South Africans, was Sean drawing a perfect line through one of the only legit tubes of the day, and in a matter of a couple hours he had taken out 12 years worth of world titles. In case you didn’t already know–Sean Holmes is a bad man at J-Bay.

With Kelly going down, we now have a new world Number 1: Jordy Smith. Today was a good day to be South African, or a Jordy Smith fan–easily posting huge scores on mediocre waves. Jordy is now slightly ahead of Taj Burrow as the favorite to win the event.

Looks like Slater won’t be walking away with his tenth world title anytime soon, as Jordy and Taj look determined to get their first. And that’s great news for everyone staying up all night to watch heats online.