---

Aussie teen sinks Slater’s title tilt

The 19-year-old earned another wild card into a World Championship Tour event, this time in Portugal, for the ninth and penultimate leg of the Association of Surfing Professionals’ 10-event calendar this year.

The goofy-footer was right at home on the peeling 1-1.5m left barrels at Belgas near Peniche, north of Lisbon, on the southern Atlantic Coast. It was the back-up site for round two of the Rip Curl Search event after storms earlier in the week destroyed the first venue.

But just as the tall and talented Wright did at Bells Beach last April, he upset Slater in the second round.

“I feel great, it was a really tough heat with not many waves. Kelly got the jump on me and opened up early so I sat and waited to try and get the bigger and better waves,” said Wright, who originally hails from Culburra, near Nowra on the southern NSW coast but is now a resident at Lennox Head.

He also knew that Slater had the uncanny knack of being able to find a good wave in the dying stages of a heat.

“Every time I have watched a heat of Kelly’s on the tour the waves turn on so I was stoked to be out there with him and have such good exchanges,” Wright told the ASP website.

“Kelly got a nice one later in the heat and I thought for sure he got the score as the crowd goes wild each time he stands up. I was just surfing the waves for what they were and trying to get deep in the barrel.

“I was lucky to get that good one towards the end.”

That wave scored Wright 7.73 out of a possible 10 for a lengthy barrel ride.

The defeat ended Slater’s hopes of forcing the 2009 world title race down to the last event—Pipeline in Hawaii in early December.

“I think Owen clearly got the better waves, his wave with two minutes to go was the best wave in the heat. I just stayed active and tried to build on the waves I had. My best barrel flattened out and didn’t leave much room to do anything,” Slater said.

“The Dream Tour (ASP slogan for 2009) has been a nightmare this year.”

It will be Wright’s dream tour next year as he is currently ranked No3 in the second-tier WQS (world qualifying series) and will be promoted to the WCT in 2010. Slater will now fall further behind than the 836 points that separated him and leader Mick Fanning before Portugal. Joel Parkinson, who has won three WCT events compared to Fanning’s two, is just 44 points behind his best mate and Coolangatta neighbour.

But Parkinson has exited the last three events in the second round—Fanning has only one second-round exit, at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa in July. Yesterday, both Fanning and Parkinson progressed to the third round, along with five other Australians.