Tahiti Wrap Up & Stats

Mick went to event 3 – the Billabong Pro Tahiti – ranked number 2 in the world after a 3rd and a 5th… He came back to Oz ranked number 3 adding a 9th. Mick and Parko were knocked out of the comp in the third round on a day of upsets… If Mick made it through round 3 and won the final of this event he would have been just 192 points short of the number one position. Fanning went to Teahupoo looking for his 50th career heat score over 17.00 and he is still looking for it after posting only two heat scores for the event and they were short of 17.00.

Round 2: This was the starting point for Mick, he came up against fellow Aussie Ben Dunn. The World Number 2 against the World Number 32. A World Champion verses a surfer who has been struggling to post scores over 13.00 during his career to date. In should have been a walk in the park kind of heat for Mick but Ben had him on the ropes. With less than five seconds left in the heat Fanning caught a heat-winning wave and scored a 9.17 to move into round 3. Mick 13.84 def Ben 11.43

Mick's heat-winning wave in Round 2. © Getty Images

Round 3: In over 300 heats on the Dream Tour, Mick has only posted 16 scores under 10.00 points… make that 17 times after round 3 in Tahiti. Mick was beaten by a score of under 10.00 points by Tommy Whitaker and the margin was just 0.03 points. Fanning was out of the event and still 792 points behind the leader fin this year’s Title race. Tom 9.43 def Mick 9.40

As the event unfolded Taj Burrow kept winning heats, and making ground on Joel. He went all the way to the final where he was eventually beaten in a high-scoring encounter with Bobby Martinez. In the process Taj overtook Mick on the ratings and pushed him into 3rd place… back where he was after event 1 on the Goldy.

Bobby Martinez became Billabong Pro Champ for the second time. © Getty Images

Bobby Martinez the winner of event 3 and now World Number 7 defeated Dayyan Neve, Andy Irons, Adriano de Sousza, Aritz Aranburu and finally Taj to become the Billabong Pro Tahiti Champion for the second time. Bobby came into the event in 19th position making up 12 spots in just one event…

Mick’s 72 event results since joining the Dream Tour in 2002…
8 x 1st ..
7 x 2nd ..
10 x 3rd ..
1 x 4th ..
11 x 5th ..
10 x 9th ..
1 x 13th ..
18 x 17th ..
6 x 33rd.

Mick’s Career Stats including his 5 wild card entries…
77 events
303 heats
205 wins
67.65% win ratio
14.78 average career score
49 scores over 17.00 in his 242 two-wave scoring heats
85 finals heats = 41 quarter finals, 27 semi finals, 17 finals for 9 wins.

Event 4 is Brazil, this event has been brought forward and was previously the second last event of the season. This could be a good thing for Mick because it is one of his favorite events as far as results go.
Mick’s previous results in Brazil…
2002-2nd
2003-2nd
2004-Inj
2005-9th
2006-1st
2007-1st
2008-Inj

If ever Fanning needed the 1200 points on offer for a win, its now… It’s been 16 events since Fanning last won an event… Brazil 2007. – Mike Newman, RAS Sports

The Tour now goes from Tahiti (pictured) to Brazil. © Getty Images