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Posted on Monday September 20th 2010 at 10:58 a.m.
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Billy Stairmand
The page had fallen open on a d.p.s of Bobby Hansen stomping a huge textbook aerial grab rotation. Bob's nomination was duly noted. After thinking long and hard though - surmising the recent results of Billy Starimand, Jay Quinn and Ricardo Christie overseas, the return to the limelight of Morehu Roberts, Blair Stewart being invited to surf in the Billabong Tahiti contest this year, and Luke Cedermans' role in the upcoming Taylor Steele, um, video - I still had to answer with the name that has dominated surfing in NZ for the last 10 years. Maz Quinn.
Jay Quinn
Although focus has changed from the international stage to a local one, Quinn's' surfing hasn't let up in the least. If Maz is getting the waves he needs - and quite often even if it's only kind of a halfway decent one - he'll surf well, score high, and win the day. Quite simply, he's the most consummate competitor to have come out of this country so far.
Ah, but that's competition surfing you say. The best surfer is the one having the most fun. Or, what about all the underground rippers who don't even enter comps? Valid points. But in the end we're all competitive creatures to a greater or lesser extent, and I can guarantee that if you consider yourself a pretty sharp kind of surfer, you will have had a crack at a few contests here and there to test your mettle in the ring. Even the most tall poppied anti-establishmentarian surfer out there wants to prove he's (or she's) better than the rest in some way or another. Sitting furtherest up the point, deepest on the ledge or calling ‘yup' on the best sets; we're all secretly - or blatantly - wanting our skilful show to shine bright in the eyes of others.
Luke Cederman
And in that context, surfing competitions become the proving grounds, and Maz has proven himself time and again to be the best. This sequence is of Maz's first wave in the final of the Corona Super 16 comp at Piha, held in April 2009 in flawless 3 foot Piha. That year the Bar provided the most consistent sandbank I've seen for a surfing contest to date. By the final the swell was starting to ease a little, and after two days of great waves and red-hot surfing action it was at last, inevitably, beginning to switch off. Isn't it weird how so often the most important heat of the event runs into the worst conditions? Perhaps nature serves a little irony as we go compete to find the best amongst a realm none can ever dominate.
Morehu Roberts
Anyways, like I said, this was Maz's first wave. The first wave ridden in the final actually, and as it formed up a little side-wedge bounced off the rocks towards the takeoff spot. By the time it had started to peak you could tell it was gonna be a sick one. I'm sure Maz could hardly believe his luck as the apex of the wave scooped him up and slingshotted him into the first section.
Rick
You know how on your backhand when you've taken off behind but sort of with the wedge, and how that angle of projection off the drop and that extra whip of speed translates so well into a round-the-corner bottom turn up into such a smackable pivot-point for your board? Well, he had that going on. In spades. Smack-Whammo up into and over the most critical pitch of lip and he was away. I counted four more verts of equal or greater commitment finished up with an almost-too-casual end-section float which he stomped with ease. I looked around and said to no one in particular, "that's a 10." It was the best looking wave I'd seen all weekend, and it had been surfed accordingly. Maz knew it too, the laid-backness of that floater said it all, he was sure in the knowledge of what the judges confirmed soon after. A perfect 10, job done.
The same thing can't quite be said, unfortunately, for my photo sequence of that wave. The shots are too staggered - fired off a little randomly, as I was keeping in mind the buffering of images and my laggardly CF card which was already full from a days shooting the country's best in great surf - I was already frantically deleting keepers in order to free up space for the final act as it was. Panning through sequences has never been my strong point either, I've always concentrated more on capturing that single shot of definitive action.
And, to be honest, I suppose I didn't quite expect the first wave that come through to be smashed to pieces quite as clinically as it was. A bit naïve I guess, but I personally like to build up to things. Mr Quinn obviously saw things differently, bolted out of the gate and grabbed at the trophy with both hands. And he got it.
Once a moment has peaked, it can only fade. For the rest of the final the classic West Coast change-with-the-tide kicked in and no more decent waves came through, and the comp wound down to the usual anti-climax.
You could also check out here for some more pics and a rundown of the event as I saw it back in 2009. Plug, plug.
Rowan
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