Supertubos, Peniche, Portugal
In the rainy conditions here in Supertubos today on the day 9 of 11 at the Rip Curl Pro Portugal 2012, the conditions are not perfect for surfing. Still the organizers decided to continue with the competition and we saw the start of the round three with the third heat of the round. We saw some good waves in the heats with scores over 10 in every heat, up until the Heat 7, with Kelly Slater and Raoni Monteiro.
Slater failed to turn the messy conditions to his advantage and managed to gain the score of 5.27 on his two best waves. The Brazilian surfer is probably more addopted to be surfing in such messy waves conditions and manage to beat the 11 times defending world champion Kelly Slater with the score of 9.20 on his 2 best waves.
Kelly was in some really bad mode after the heat, that he stayed in the water trough the whole of the heat 8 with Julian Willson and Michle Burez. Won by Jullian Willson with the score of 16.00. Julian Willson managed to get a 10 and a 6.0 score. So Slater can definitely not complain about the conditions of the waves.
Slater allso suffered a huge wipe-out on this event. And now, with Joel Parkinson, John John Florence advancing in the competition the defending and achieving the 12th world title is in a big question now for Slater. It’s now for sure that the destiny of his title is in the hands of Joel Parkinson, John John Florence and Mick Fanning, with only 2 more competitions on the ASP world tour to follow. See the ASP world tour stats here
You can read the interview with Kelly Slater after his elimination from Rip Curl Pro Portugal 2012 here.
Deep Soul Surfer 
Joel is probably gonna win it all. Even though he hasnt really even gotten first at all this year. Slater can only hope that the others will fail to place in the next 2 events and he pretty much needs to win both of them. Then, maybe, he’ll have a shot.