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France: The Four Man Showdown

As the sun sets in France, who will walk away victorious?

There are four surfers left in the Quiksilver Pro France, and there are waves on the way. What sort of waves? Clean waves, not too big, with occasional barrels, to be sure. Maybe four feet, the odd five-foot face, but it’s going to go offshore, with neat waves breaking on the outside bank and bowling rip waves on the left as the tide moves in. With that information at hand, let’s consider the surfers remaining.

All four of them have brilliant small to medium wave games. It’s not going to be micro small, but there aren’t going to be any waves of consequence, so the degree of separation between the surfers is slim. 

Keanu Asing

Rated 33rd on the Jeep Leaderboard, is a diminutive 5’5 and weighs in at 65kgs. He’s from Hawaii, so he’s naturally accustomed to bigger waves, but being small in stature he has a good approach to small surf. On top of that advantage, he’s hungry. He was ecstatic to make the semi-finals, allowing a few primal screams out as well as showing his powerful forearms to the cheering crowds. In post-heat interviews he’s calm and eloquent and doesn't use the word ‘sick.’ He comes up against fellow Hawaiian…

John John Florence

comes in at an upright 6’1 and he weighs in at 75kgs, a full 8 inches taller and 10kgs heavier than his shorty counterpart. While John John is an accomplished big wave surfer (he won the 2016 Quiksilver in Memory Of Eddie Aikau event in 45 – 55ft surf earlier this year https://tracksmag.com.au/news/john-john-florence-wins-the-eddie-aikau-invitational-426798) he also has an incredible small wave game. His fifth round heat against Filipe and Stu Kennedy was case in point, with 18.47 points in the bank before Filipe went HAM and got his tenner for a full spinner into the flats on his backhand. John John has a world title in his thoughts, while Keanu has requalification in his thoughts. Each thought is extremely pressing, and which one is more urgent will be reflected on the result of that semifinal.

Gabriel Medina

Is the prime suspect in the second semi-final. At 5’11 and 80kgs, he is the biggest of the semi-finalists, but that doesn't hold him back in any way. The tide will be low in the morning when they get going, and Gabby is equally as deadly on the right-handers as he is on the lefts. In fact, his backhand rotors are probably going to be his hero moves, and his extra bulk on those rights could actually be to his advantage. So far he has been pumping once or twice on his backhand, staying high and bouncing into the sky for some of the highest scoring single moves of the contest. He has the hunger as well, but it’s the hunger for glory, the addictive glory of winning contests and world championship status that he is chasing. Is that the sort of hunger that gets you to a world title? It’s to blame for Kelly Slater’s 11 world titles. He comes up against the Californian Kid…

Kolohe Andino

At 5’11 and 73kgs, is ranked 10th in the world on the Jeep Leaderboard, and he’s actually a little more complex to figure out at this stage of the game. He is sitting fairly safe on the Championship Tour rankings as mentioned, and is guaranteed a slot on the 2017 Championship Tour. He also has no chance of a world title, so one has to wonder about his hunger. His small wave skills are there, for sure, and he would like a CT win to prove to his detractors, but he most likely does not have that hunger that might be needed for a big win. Without wishing to detract from his surfing performances of late, especially at this event, Kolohe is going to have to dig deep if he wants to get to the final let alone win. He has been battling along for a while now, and over this last year Kolohe has matured and developed as a competitive surfer, far from the surfer who angrily stomped on his board at JBay last year in an earlier round in a situation that would have garnered plenty of attention if Mick hadn’t been bumped by a shark. He seems calmer, more focused and happy in his own skin, and that very joie de vivre might be what sees him to the win in France. 

Surf forecast here 

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