Arica, Chile – Thursday May 17, 2012 – Today’s Press Conference officially kicked off the 2012 IBA Stealth Arica Chilean Challenge, hosting the largest field of competitors ever to compete in the trials of an IBA GSS event. With over 100 riders in the trials draw, event organisers have set aside four days to complete the trials and decide the top six riders who will secure their slot in the 32 man GSS event. The strong Chilean contingent along side other South American riders from Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela will be standing their ground against Hawaiians, Australians, French, Basque, Portuguese, South Africans and riders from as far as Morocco and Reunion. Event organizers are expecting to start competition at 7:30 am. With a flurry of big swells expected throughout the waiting the 2012 IBA Stealth Arica Chilean Challenge presented by BSC is bound to be action packed.
As usual we’ll be giving a couple updates as the event goes on but it’s always best to follow the event LIVE on the IBA site and read all the news & event posts on the IBA site directly.
Mitch Rawlins is the 2012 IBA Box Pro champion! Congrats Mitch ! A well-deserved win ! Rawlins surfed consistently throughout the event and outperformed South African Mark McCarthy in the final in onshore six foot conditions – as written on the IBA World Tour latest news post. This is Rawlins’s first win since 2005. Yeah Mitch !
The BOX event in WA just started (sorry we suck and should have warned you before) with the trials and 2 days of contest already. Watch the event live and check all the latest info here on the IBA site: ibaworldtour.com
Isabela Sousa, from Brazil, is the 2012 IBA Pipe Challenge Womens champion. The former world champion clenched her first Pipe title in fun three to four foot waves. Defeating Karla Costa-Taylor, Minami Hatakeyama and Neymara Carvalho in a close fought final.
Sacha Specker is the new 2012 IBA Pipe Challenge dropknee champion. The South African took top honours, defeating three Hawaiians- Bud Miyamoto, Miles Kauhaahaa and Kainoa McGee- in fun three to four foot waves.
Congrats guys !
Follow the tour, the videos, the recaps etc. on the ibaworldtour.com
Jeff did it again ! Yeah Jeff ! Jeff Hubbard – who we interviewed here just a few days ago – is the 2012 IBA Pipe Challenge champion ! Congrats Jeff ! The Hawaiian won the first event of the 2012 world tour / season in flawless 6-8ft barrelling waves, in what people are calling the best Pipe event in 15 years.
Defeating fellow Hawaiian and 11 times Pipe Champion, Mike Stewart in second place, Dave Winchester (Mullumbimby, AUS) in third and 21 year old Sam Bennet from Port Macquarie, Australia in fourth. The flawless 6-8 foot Pipe and Backdoor waves made for one of the highest scoring finals in the history of the IBA.
Cool highlight from Day 1 at Pipeline (yesterday). Can’t wait for today as the swell got bigger and conditions should be insane ! Stay tuned and check the IBA site coz the contest should definitely be ON later today, in a couple hours !
From the IBA:
IBA 2012 Pipe Challenge
Event 1 of 8, Mens Grand Slam Series
Pipeline, Oahu, Hawaii
Feb 15-24th, 2012
ibaworldtour.com
Wednesday, 15th February 2012, Ehukai Beach Park, Oahu, Hawaii – Day one of the 2012 IBA Pipe Pro started off with two Rounds of Women in flawless 4 foot waves at Pipeline and Backdoor. Emma Cobb (AUS) was a standout amongst the ladies, drawing clean lines and negotiating through a long barrels, showing that she deserves a spot in the quarter finals. By mid morning the top 16 Women had been decided as a new Northwest swell started producing a constant flow of bigger sets. Round 1 and 2 of the Mens got under way in building 4-8 foot offshore waves.
Working his way through the trials and into the main event, Lewy Finnegan (AUS) managed to scoop into a perfect Backdoor barrel, exiting cleanly to earn him the only 10 point ride of the day.
“It was pretty unreal, I was just lucky to get onto that wave, it pretty much did it for me.” Finnegan commented. “To get a 10 in a comp like this…I am pretty happy. I can’t wait for tomorrow to get some big pits.”
Other standouts and heat winners included, Nick Ormerod (AUS), Micah Oh (HAW) Bud Miyamoto (HAW), Tim Hamilton (HAW) and JB Hillen (HAW).
Tomorrows forecast is calling for a large bump in the swell with clean conditions, the perfect recipe for a show-stopping three rounds ahead.
Records were broken today as 12 year old Tanner McDaniel (HAW) became the youngest rider ever to compete in the Pipe Challenge main event. Although blitzing his trials heats, McDaniel was unable to keep his momentum in Round 1 and was eliminated by Ruben Quinones (PUR) and Micah Oh (HAW).
During his post heat interview, McDaniel commented: “I got a couple good waves, not the best, but it was so much fun. I am so glad I got to do this.”
Tomorrows event is scheduled to start with Round 3 of Mens and will run to the end of Round 5 of the Mens, completing 24 heats from 8 am until 4pm Honolulu time.
The 2012 IBA World Tour is about to start with event #1 – The Pipeline Pro in Hawaii – 15th to 24th of Feb. 2012 – Watch the tour trailer and event trailer on the official IBA Youtube Channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ibaworldtour
For many reasons we have not been covering the ISA world bodyboard championships on Spongercity.com – sorry about this. We have received some PR stuff but it’s all in Spanish and we only speak a little spanish, not enough to really be able to translate it.
Other than that we never understood how someone could be crowned “world champ” in one comp. A comp is a comp, a winner is a winner, it’s awesome to win a comp but how can you say you’re a “world champ” if you won one comp where 50% of the world top pros haven’t even showed up ?
Other than that the ISA is mostly managed by stand ups (we stand up surf too and love surfing as much as bodyboarding). We like things to be separated for many reasons. We believe each sport should have its independency. In most countries bodyboarding is part of the surfing federations or associations or whatever you call it. That sucks. To each sport its federation or association. Bodyboarders have been looked down on since ever, they’ve coped with stupid nicknames and clichés since ever and now they should be happy to be part of another sport federation ? Nah. Sorry but we believe in independency and we reckon bbers should drive their own destiny and make it happen for themselves even if it’s harder this way. Once again this has nothing to do with surfing, we love surfing as much as bodyboarding but we just think it’s normal for each sport to have their own structures. Same as wakeboarding is not associated with kayaking.
Other than that we’ve looked for a website and a live webcast for the ISA but couldnt find antyhing on Google and then when someone pointed us to a website that might be able to give us answers it seemed that we needed to login to watch a live event. We don’t login anywhere to watch a live event, sorry.
So, yes we might be stubborn idiots but we’re sure there are tons of other stubborn idiots like us out there supporting core bodyboarding and independent bodyboarding such as the IBA World Tour and other bodyboarders-owned-and-operated events.
Sorry for being so “extreme” or stupidly “hardcore” and we must confess this whole article doesn’t have much to do with the ISA event but it’s just some stuff we wanted to say and we just did now. Thanks for reading.
