From BillabongPro: Former three-time ASP World Champion Andy Irons provides his thoughts on the Billabong Pro J-Bay, the waves at Supertubes, visiting Jeffreys Bay and the pressure of the recently introduced One World Tour Rankings in the third in a series of webisodes uploaded to www.billabongpro.com, the official website of Africa’s most prestigious surfing event.
The 31 year-old Hawaiian, who took a 12 month sabbatical from the ASP World Tour last year, has been one of the standout performers at Supers throughout the last decade, winning the Billabong Pro J-Bay in 2004, and the superb footage amply demonstrates his superior tube-riding skills, powerful bottom turns, slashing cutbacks and vertical off-the-top manoeuvres.
Ranked No. 23 on the ASP World Title Race leaderboard going into J-Bay, Irons explains why he will arrive early to fine-tune his equipment and is frank about needing a good result in the Billabong Pro to ensure he’s in the mix when the ASP World Tour competitors are cut from 45 to 32 after the fifth event in Tahiti in August
The www.billabongpro.com website features heaps of content including background information, news, photos and videos and will provide LIVE coverage of the all the action during the event with multiple camera angles, slow motion replays, up to the second scoring, commentary in English and Portuguese, email messages to the commentators, interactive competitions and video-on-demand highlights of previous heats.
The Billabong Pro J-Bay is scheduled for 15-25 July 2010 at the internationally renowned Supertubes surf break in Jeffreys Bay. It is stop No. 4 of 10 on the 2010 ASP World Tour, the series of events that determines the annual ASP World Surfing Champion, and the field comprises the world’s top 45 ranked professional surfers along with three wildcards.
