The 28 invitees to The Eddie Aikau Big-Wave Invitational were made public yesterday. An invitation to compete in the Eddie—which owes its namesake and acts as an homage to the late Hawaiian big-wave legend Eddie Aikau—has served as a highly coveted chevron on the sleeve of big-wave surfers since the contest’s inception. For the event to run, conditions at Waimea have to exceed the 25-foot mark, and in its 28-year history, the contest has only been run eight times.
This year, the selection process was handed over to members of the big-wave community, who were asked to create a dream team of competitors and alternates. According to Quiksilver, the event sponsor, “Each surfer’s vote was tallied and the highest ranking 24 surfers became this year’s list of Invitees. An additional four regional Invitee selections were chosen by Quiksilver, making up the final four of a total of 28 Invitees.” The new faces graduating from alternates to official invitees include John Florence, Ian Walsh, and Alex Gray.
“My whole life I’ve been going to the opening ceremony, looking at all the big guys with their big boards, and paddling out to the circle since I was super little. Something about Waimea and the way Eddie surfed it back in the day, all the stories you hear about him, it’s just such a powerful place,” says John Florence. “You can feel it when you’re out there. To be able to grow up and kind of learn to surf that wave since I was little, and be able to watch the last couple of Eddies has been crazy.”
The waiting period for the event begins on Dec. 1 and will run until Feb. 28 2013.
Invitees:
Alex Gray
Bruce Irons
Carlos Burle
Clyde Aikau
Dave Wassel
Garrett McNamara
Grant Baker
Greg Long
Ian Walsh
Jamie O’Brien
Jamie Sterling
John Florence
Jeremy Flores
Kala Alexander
Kelly Slater
Kohl Christenson
Makua Rothman
Mark Healey
Nathan Fletcher
Noah Johnson
Peter Mel
Ramon Navarro
Reef McIntosh
Ross Clarke-Jones
Shane Dorian
Sunny Garcia
Takayuki Wakita
Tom Carroll
Alternates:
Danny Fuller
Kalani Chapman
Kahea Hart
Michael Ho
Keoni Downing
Brock Little
David Standt
Danilo Couto
Ben Wilkinson
Jamie Mitchell
Keoni Watson
Kealii Mamala
Rusty Keaulana
Gabriel Villaran
Tau Hannemann
Mark Mathews
Evan Valiere
Deigo Medina
Rusty Long
Aaron Gold
Myles Padaca
Chris Bertish
Andrew Marr
Anthony Tashnick
Shawn Dollar
Ross Williams
Derek Dunfee
Source: http://www.surfermag.com/features/eddie-invitees-announced/
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Not sure why Rusty Long and Michael Ho are alternates, especially since they are both very respected and talented big wave surfers.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see all the names that aren't on there when you think about the ASP surfers... I guess many of them aren't cut out to be big wave surfers.
ReplyDeleteAlso cool that John John Florence is on there...