The Title Race in Numbers

Mick… Parko… Adriano… Kelly… C.J… Who will it be?

EVENT 8;  Spain 2009… The third last event of the season, and the world was looking at Mick and Joel to see who would be going to be World Number One. Mick was one heat win worth of points behind Parko on the ASP ladder at the start of the event, but after counting throw away results he was realistically 2 heat wins behind. Joel crashed out in the round of 17 and Mick went down in the round of 9ths. So a game of leap frog has begun and Mick has moved into number one or is that number two.

This is the first time there has been a lead change on the ASP ratings since 2005, it hasn’t happened in the last 4 years. In 2006 Kelly lead from start to finish… In 2007 Mick lead from start to finish, with the exception of when he shared the number one spot with Taj for one event after event two… Last season Kelly lead from start to finish… And this year until this week, Joel has lead the first 7 events. So for the first time in 5 years there has been a lead change on the ASP ladder during the season.

If either Joel or Kelly were to get up and win the title this year, it will be the first time in the “Two Wave Era” that a World Champion will count a 17th in his final total.

Mick has taken the lead in the rankings by just 44 points, but after considering the two throw aways he is still 146 points behind, basically still one heat win behind, depending on what round of course… Joel has picked up three event wins this season but also posted three 17ths (he will throw away two) … Mick has two event wins for the season but is throwing away a 9th and a 17th at this stage. Mick has an average event result this season of  6.25 compared with Joel’s 8.25.

C.J Hobgood, who is currently 4th has the best season average result of 6.0… The unfortunate thing for C.J. is the fact that he is currently throwing away two 9th and will drop from 3rd to 6th, a penalty for his consistency but he is without a 1st or 2nd where the bonus points are.  . He has taken part in 5 of the 8 final series so far this season for two 3rds and three 5ths. The difference between 1st and 3rd is 324 points

Then from left field there is  Kelly and Mick’s Red Bull team mate Adriano who kept going through heats in Spain until Adriano took out Kelly in the semis and went onto post the first Dream Tour Event Win of his career. The Brazilian has made 3 finals this year and can now call himself a Dream Tour Event Winner… He is back into 3rd on the ladder and after throw aways he is just 348 points away from winning his first World Title. Adriano has one 17th and one 33rd in his results to throw away (just 635 points) He is just 2 heat wins short of an upset… If Adriano was to go just two or three more heat wins further than all his rivals in the last two events, it could add up to a Brazilian Title. The difference between 1st and 5th is 468 points .. between 3rd and 17th is 466 points. between 33rd and 9th is 375 points.

So in summary to the above, there are still several surfers left in the title race, Taj is a long way back but with two wins and other surfers results, who knows?.  And there is Bede, who is a Pipeline Master and is in fact 10 points ahead of Slater after throw aways. So it should go to Pipe to be decided, one thing is for certain, its about winning events now. There are eight surfers within 1000 points of 1st position, there is 2400 points on offer for two wins… Going to be a great finish.

For Renato’s take on the different senario’s go to aspworldtour.com

Spain had some other highlights, In heat 1 of round three, the last heat to be held at the Mundaka location,  C.J posted the lowest winning score ever posted  in Spain. The Floridian posted a 8.00 to defeat Kekoa 6.17. It is also the lowest combined heat total ever posted in Spain, just 14.81 between them.  TWO  RECORDS!!!

Chris Davidson made it to his first CT Final and moved into 20th position, he has put himself over 800 points ahead of Josh and Jay in 28th position gaining a little breathing space… Drew Courtney jumped up 7 spots and into 32nd position with his 5th placing and he is now a realist chance of qualifying, he is just 180 points outside of the top 27.  Drew will be aiming for a 9th minumum in Portugal…

Spain was Chris Ward’s 50 event on the Dream Tour, he didn’t celebrate much with a 17th finish…  career 140 heats .. 53 wins .. 37.86% win ratio .. 6 quarter finals .. 4 semis and 2 finals for 2 runner ups .. 5th year on the tour, his best was 17th in 2007 Currently equal 35th and 317 points outside the 27..

Kelly posted his 600th heat win in round 2 Spain with the only score over 17.00 in the event; Career; 180 events .. 798 heats .. 602 wins .. 68.42% win ratio .. (252 finals) 111quarters ..  83 semis .. 58 finals for 41 wins. NINE WORLD TITLES…

UPDATE; 47 scores over 17.00 have been posted this season, Fanning 9 .. Slater 7* .. Parko 6 .. Dane 6 .  ***Slater the only surfer to post a plus 17 score in Spain 2009

There has only been 10 scores over 18.00 posted in Spain, there has been two over 19.00… Parko 19.70 in 2006 and Royden Bryson last season with a 19.37..

Josh and Jay have both slipped out of the top 27 after round 2 in Spain.   Ace and Davo moved in…

There is just 279 points between Tom Boal in 25th postion and Aritz in 34th position. These 10 surfers all have two 33rds to throw away.

Only one surfer posted a season high heat score in Spain, Micky Picon posted a 14.20 in round 1, bettering his 14.07 in round 2 Brazil…  Where the surfers have posted their season high scores. Gold Coast 17 .. Bells 5 .. Tahiti 4 .. Brazil 2 .. J-Bay 5 .. Trestles 6 .. France 3 .. Spain 1.

13 surfers amoung the current top 45 are event winners, they share 88 wins between them;  Slater 41 ..  Fanning 11 .. Parkinson 9 .. Burrow 6 .. D.Hobgood 4 .. C.J Hobgood 4 .. Martinez 4 .. Durbidge 3 .. Campbell 2 ..  Knox 1 .. Morrison 1 ..  Buchan 1 ..  *de Sousa 1.

Two surfers from within the new top 27 are yet to make the finals in 2009, Flores and Boal… Three surfers from outside the top 27 have surfed finals in 2009, Barca,  Aranburu and now Drew Courtney.

10 of the current top 27 surfers are over 30 years old… The average ave of the top 45 is 27.26y/o

Bourez and Becalso went into Spain with identical stats and locked in 19th position, Kekoa went a round further and moved up to 17th and the outright leader for Rookie of the Year, he leads by 190 over Michel and 702 points ahead of Tim Boal the other rookie inside the top 27.

The two leaders will head to Portugal with almost identical stats. Both Mick and Joel have surfed in 8 events both surfed in 30 heats .. Won 23 heats each .. 76.67% win ratios .. Joel’s average heat score is 14.81 and Mick’s is 14.87…

NEXT EVENT: The Search, it started with Micks win on Reunion Island in 2005, then 2006 Mexico and 2007 Chili the “Andy Years” and then last season in Indo with Bruce Irons winning his first event on tour…  Now its Portugal. Good luck! Aloha. Mike Newman, RAS Stats

The Contenders. All photos © Getty Images

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