After a few exciting days of competition at the 2009 Billabong Pipeline Masters, we’ve crowned our 2009 World Champ (Mick Fanning), closed in on our 2009 Vans Triple Crown Champ (CJ Hobgood or Joel Parkinson), finalized our rookie rankings (seeing Kekoa Bacalso at the head of the 2009 pack), and seen a huge number of dreams crushed and hopes dashed. Let’s explore the latter.
Before the event has even finished, we can say goodbye to:
- Marlon Lipke – who missed this event due to injury and has been plagued with a season of heat losses.
- Phil MacDonald – who was running neck and neck with Lipke in a race for the bottom until his impressive 9th place finish at Pipe.
- David Weare – who finished last amongst the South Africans on tour.
- Dayyan Neve – who couldn’t put up the big results and whose 9th place Pipe finish just wasn’t enough.
- Nathan Curran – who had a few moments of shine, but not enough to requalify.
- Miky Picon – who finished last amongst the Fronchies, though put in a solid early performance at Pipe.
- Jihad Khodr – who finished last amongst the Brazilians and allows us all to now breath a collective sigh of relief that he will not be on the tour in 2010.
- Chris Ward – who couldn’t seem to put it together this season after a solid 2008. Wardo, you will be sorely missed.
- Aritz Aranburu – who showed the ability to take down champions, but wasn’t strong enough to put together a string of solid results.
- Dustin Barca – who peaked with a 5th in Brazil, but couldn’t launch a solid campaign.
- Nic Muscoft – who’s string of 17ths wasn’t enough to requalify.
- Josh Kerr – who’s two 9ths weren’t enough to push him into the top 27. Hope to see more exciting stuff from Kerr off tour, where he truly shines.
- Greg Emslie – who won “a heat” almost every event, but never pushed past “a heat”.
- Tim Boal – who put in a solid freshman effort, but finished just shy of requalifying.
Now I haven’t done the math on this yet (and am waiting on someone more qualified to crunch the appropriate numbers), but it looks like Roy Powers 17th place finish at Pipe may have been enough to let him slip by Heitor Alves, leaving him a questionable position on the bubble. More clarification on that later this week. Stay tuned for a complete accounting of who’s on the 2010 World Tour, and be sure to tune in to the Billabong website for the quarterfinal heats when competition resumes at Pipe this week.
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