What's in a Name

While friends and family say my general state of confusion is not new, getting one's head around the perpetually shifting formats in professional surfing is a tortuous process beyond my cognitive powers.

What I do know is that despite doom and gloom after J-Bay was taken off the main professional tour, the event will be bigger, way bigger, with many more international surfers competing, and more exposure to more South African surfers.

According to media liaison guy Craig Jarvis, more than 120 internationals will fly to South Africa, including 13 of the top 32 in the world from the elite tour. Among them will be Jordy Smith, Travis Logie, John John Florence, Adam Melling, Adriano de Souza and the Hobgood brothers. The local contingent numbers 30, and includes stalwarts Royden Bryson and Davey Weare, as well as age group winners of the SA Champs, Casey Grant and Mikey February.

From an event that used to feature 32 surfers, the Billabong now features 144, who will make the cut from 165 entries (21 will be culled in pre-event seeding rounds).

"It's going to be very busy!” says Jarvis of the "six star men's event on the ASP World Tour". Surfers on the World Tour, which was once called the World Qualifying Series, still vie for points that get them promoted to the premiere tour.

"The elite tour(the one with 32 top surfers) has reverted to calling itself the World Championship Tour (WCT), like it used up to five years ago," says Jarvis, who is perhaps the only person in the world, apart from a smattering of ASP officials, who understands what he is saying. "It's become more simple," he adds.

In many ASP press releases, a reference to the Dream Tour is made. So what is it, I asked Jarvis, the Dream Tour or the WCT?

"The Dream Tour is a nickname given to it by Rabbit Bartholomew back when he was boss, and was changing venues from sloppy beachbreaks to world class waves like G-Land in Indonesia. It is not an official name," says Jarvis.

To cope with the traffic in this event (the biggest in J-Bay since 1981), four man heats will be held to quickly sort the wheat from the chaff. There will be no repechage for losers. The bottom two are straight out.

"Someone will fly from Brazil, and get knocked out in the first round."

Old man Mark Occhilupo, 46, whose backhand power carves are rated best in the world, could win if the surf pumps over six feet.

Apart from top seeds, giant killer Sean Holmes, who shreds J-Bay, can’t be discounted.

The Billabong Pro J-Bay runs 10-15 July, and promises to be quite a party.

Epic Talk

It was great to meet David George, the other half of Team 360Life, who got a second in the Cape Epic this year. His partner Kevin Evans could not be at the screening of An Epic Tale during the Encounters Documentary Film Festival. As the facilitator of the Q&A after the 80 minute movie, it was cool to see the audience grill George for his secrets, which documents the trials and tribulations of the South African pair in their quest for MTB glory. Many people don’t know that George was a professional road cyclist before he tired of the scene and Kevin’s dad Leon is the trail designer, aka Dr Evil.

Tearing up the Taal

At the Taal Monument in Paarl, riders in Round 3 of the WP Downhill Series tore apart the technical 1.2km course. Despite spongy patches of mud after heavy rains the day before, only one broken collarbone was sacrificed to the cause. Adi van der Merwe blasted the course in 1.45.33 with Jonty Neethling 0.61 seconds behind him. Course designer, DH veteran Chris Nixon, 43, kept his word and stayed in the top 10 by coming 10th.

Tweeple

@360life the official Twitter channel of Cape Epic riders David George and Kevin Evans

Send adventure sports news to spike@wavescape.co.za / Steve Pike is founder of www.wavescape.co.za