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British number one excels in Tahiti
by George Mojo
04/06/2006:// British number one Russell Winter missed out on overall victory at the O'Neill Mission in Tahiti by just one vote. The Newquay surfer, who had earlier won the best tube award for a stand-up barrell at Teahupoo, finished runner up to American Ian Walsh.
An on-line voting system was used to determine part of the result which ran alongide the surfers voting for their peers favourite waves using a video review.
The result was extra special for Winter who was badly injured at the famed left breaking reef several years ago. Winter was invited to take part in the mobile competition after taking top honours at the Highland Open in Scotland. The prospects for the season ahead look really promising for the Cornish-based surfer with speculation about a possible charge towards the World Championship Tour.
Ahead of the prizegiving, the Haumana cruiser - the luxurious floating base for the contest, motored into the pass at Taapuna and Ry Craike, Hugo Savalli, Aritz Arunburu and Russl just couldn’t resist the call of one last freesurf on The Mission in fun waist to shoulder high lefthanders with a light sideoffshore wind.
The rest of the crew spent their time relaxing on the boat and sorting through the almost two hours of total waves logged during the sessions and freesurfs over the last week. A big shout must go out to Manu, our on-site video editor who spent 14 hours straight in front of the computer yesterday, editing everyone’s parts for the voting and logging in the last waves from the last session of the Mission at Taapuna.
Once all the boys were out of the water, the Haumana motored out of the barrier reef on Tahiti and into the sunset for a last dinner and party under the stars moored in the beautiful Cook’s bay on the island of Moorea.
The final festivities were highlighted by the crew jamming out some solid Tahitian sounds on the bar deck, to the delight of Russell Winter’s dancing feet.
Everyone was up early the following morning to enjoy the scenery of Moorea and Cook’s Bay over breakfast, before motoring to Tahiti for the final voting and awards presentation.
The Haumana docked in front of local hot spot, The Pink Coconut for a very animated awards ceremony to the sounds of the boat’s crew busting out their best Tahitian tunes. A few rain showers didn’t dampen the mood, and the winner of $25,000 US on the inaugural edition of The Mission,
Ian Walsh had this to say about his first place finish: "I’m so psyched ! Just to surf with these guys all week was unreal. To win the whole thing, the money and all is just icing on the cake!"
The British team has now set off for the World Surfing Games and things became a little nerve-racking before departure due to a last minute personal situation which meant that their invaluable team manager had to pull out
Costa Rican National Surf Team comes to Portugal with an arsenal of its strongest weapons
Russell Winter wins 2008 Elusive Welsh Open in one of the best finals the UK Pro Surf Tour has had to date
[Tyler Wright eliminating Stephanie Gilmore in Round 3]
[Jimena Calvo passes round 2]
[Stephanie Gilmore]
Some of the biggest and potentially costly upsets of the season went down today while Round 3 of the Beachley Classic
Nearly half of the Costa Rica National Surf Team hit the water today in Costa de Caprica, in the province of Almeda, Portugal, kicking off their part of the competition in the 2008 International Surfing Association (ISA) World Surfing Games (WSG).
The 2008 Beachley Classic got underway this morning, completing Rounds 1 and 2 as well as the opening two heats of Round 3 at nearby Freshwater Beach in clean two-to-three foot (1 metre) waves
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