10th October 2011, Kuta-Bali: Thousands of people packed world-famous Kuta Beach for a weekend of award-winning music and epic surfing and skating performances at the Rip Curl Surf & Music Festival on Sunday afternoon.
Kuta Beach local and Indonesia’s Number 2 ranked surfer Raditya “Cabul” Rondi charged through a field of highly skilled professional surfers to meet and best last year’s winner and newly crowned 2011 Coca-Cola ISC Open Champion Marlon Gerber in an exciting final at the final tour event of the season.
For his win he receives the winners check of Rp 15 million (approximately $1,666 USD), 3,000 ISC championship points, and a beautiful guitar from Rip Curl.
Rondi held nothing back in the 25 minute final dual of the day that took place in front of thousands of spectators watching from the beach, starting his victory charge by ripping apart his first wave and posting the highest scoring wave of the final, a 7.0 (out of a possible 10) to jump into a lead that he never relinquished. Midway through the heat Gerber began to narrow the gap with a series of aerial maneuvers, but then Rondi took the air himself completing a very difficult “Superman” aerial that got him a solid 6 points from the judges and punctuated his dominance in the final. When time ran out, his opponent Gerber was still looking for a wave that would give him a shot at the 7 point score he needed for to win.
Rondi had a supremely satisfied smile back on the beach, saying, “It feels so good to finally win one from Marlon. We had a really close final in the Rote contest and he won that one, so I’m really happy about this today.” “It’s the end of a great year and I would like to say a big thanks to my sponsor, to the ISC crew, and to Rip Curl for everything!” he graciously added.
When asked about how he felt going into the final with the low tide conditions he replied, “I was watching the waves and saw a few lefts coming in during the GromSearch final, so I felt pretty confident. I knew there were some waves out there and that I could get some good scores…after all this is my home break!”
Gerber was characteristically relaxed after the final, saying in his laid-back style “I just went out there hoping I could get a couple of good waves, I wasn’t thinking about winning or losing. Being in the final was good enough, really. I was lucky earlier today in my Round 4 heat against Gazali Hamzah, where I got a good one at the last minute to win the heat, so I thought it might happen like that again in the final too. It’s been a great year for me, so I’m very happy.” With his runner up finish today, it has indeed been a great year for the new Indonesian surfing champion, going from being the 6th ranked surfer in 2010 to being the number 1 in 2011.
Each of the surfers are repeat Rip Curl Surf & Music Festival winners, Rondi having won in 2009 and Gerber in 2010.
Preceding the Open final was the much anticipated National GromSearch final, which saw Ediana Putra from Nusa Lembongan, Raju Sena from Kuta, and Deden Sutendi from West Java take on last’s year’s GromSearch winner Jeren Kiring for the ultimate grom prize of a trip to Australia to compete in next year’s World GromSearch Finals at Bells Beach. It was heavy heat with all the groms going for broke at every opportunity in the often closing out low tide beach break, but Ediana Putra’s combination of aerials, powerful hacks and quick floaters quickly got him into the lead and kept him there. Jeren Kiring just couldn’t seem to put everything together on one wave for a big score, narrowly missing a couple of potentially high scores but not being able to fully complete some radical maneuvers including a backside air reverse, so ended up in third place behind a charging Kuta local Raju Sena.
And though Kiring may have finished with a third place finish in the GromSearch final, he went home with the 2011 Coca-Cola ISC Junior Championship for the second year in a row as Indonesia’s best junior (under 16 years of age) surfer.
In the Women’s Division final it was 3-time Coca-Cola ISC Women’s champion Yasnyiar “Bonne” Gea who added another win as well as another Women’s Championship title to her impressive list of accomplishments as Indonesia’s top women’s surfer. When asked if all this winning is getting boring, she replied “Winning is never boring when you are surfing. Competing is never easy so every win is special, especially like in today’s final when it was difficult for all of us to find good scoring waves. I guess I just got lucky!” Gea wisely used patience and her experience to ferret out the best waves of the heat and score the biggest points to dominate the final.
A new addition to the Rip Curl Surf & Music Festival this year was the Mirage Air Show, with Rp. 5 million up for grabs to the surfer who could launch and land the biggest aerial. Eight of Bali’s best aerial specialists including Garut Widiarta, Lee Wilson, Betet Merta, Dede Suryana, Mustofa Jeksen, and Mega Semadhi had the option of paddling or jet ski assist to get them into the air to impress the judges, who at one point included two beautiful Norwegian beach beauties! The crowded beach was going crazy as each surfer went ballistic, flying as high as 2 meters into the air in their chase for that 5 million rupiah prize, and after the two heats were over and the judges reviewed and compared the video it was Lee Wilson who nabbed the cash with his huge frontside air reverse.
Topping the list of the many highlights in today’s action was the exciting battle for the heat win by Rip Curl team riders Pepen Hendrik and Garut Widiarta in Heat 5 of Round 4 with. Pepen came out of the gate firing, chalking up two big scores while Garut couldn’t seem to find anything and was slapping the water in frustration. But with just over 5 minutes remaining in the heat he lit things up, slashing and ripping not one but two nice runners, one that resulted in the events highest single wave score of 9.83 (out of a possible 10) as well an 8.24 combined to get him the highest combined heat score of 18.07 (out of 20) for the event, blitzing past Hendrik and winning the heat. Back on the beach Hendrik just smiled and shook his head, saying, “Wow…that was a lot of fun…can you believe it? First there were big cheers for me, but then it all changed and everybody was cheering for Garut. That was crazy!” For his big score, Widiarta received the Coca-Cola Highest Wave Score Award and Rp. 1 million.
