:: Historic
In 2011 Quiksilver decided to take the world tour to New York. It sounded like a bad idea on paper but the lure of $1million dollar prize pool (the biggest ever for any event) raised the stakes and interest. It was the year that surfing went to the cities with Championship Tour events in New York, San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro. New York is one of my favourite places to travel so as soon as it was announced I decided I was going to be there. I had a feeling it would be first and last time a WCT event would be held in one of the world's great city's. The week before the event Hurricane Irene crossed the Long Island coast almost exactly at the point where the contest was to be held. Long Beach was declared a natural disaster and the Mayor cancelled the event. With so much at stake, Quiksilver President Bob McKnight flew into New York and put everything on the table to plead with the City officials to allow the contest to run and it paid off. The event ran, minus the planned sideshow, and the rest is history.
After a few days of fairly average waves, the surf turned on for the final day, the sun came out, New Yorkers travelled to the beach and Owen Wright took home US$300,000 for his first place. It was a historic event for numerous reason; Bobby Martinez made his infamous "Tennis Tour" comment, Kelly Slater scored 10-points for a single manoeuvre. Thanks for putting on a show NYC!
It's raining again in Sydney this morning. If you want to brave the run-off there's actually a couple of waves around.
:: Murray