Winner Abel Halderman at the SLSA Surfline Shortboard Pro (photo: Dharma Austin)A number of striking upsets saw top-ranked Pova Rustamova fail to make the podium and 15th ranked Abel Halderman make the most of difficult conditions and take the winners' cup at the SLSA Surfline Shortboard Pro!
For a competition that has had its fair share of bad luck during the past couple of months, one could say that the Surfline Shortboard Pro saw the worst of it on Saturday and laughed in its face! The event, orginally scheduled for March 22nd, was postponed twice, the second time due to a total grid lock-down by Linden Lab. A special competition sim was created on Rezzable Discover for the rescheduled competition in early April, but then, after postponing to 26 April 2008, Rezzable Discover was taken over by another Rezzable project and the Surfline Shortboard Pro had its third venue change. Last week saw a controversial ruling on permissable competiton surfboards, allowing a variety of surfboards to compete including those with pre-Havok4 and post-Havok4 scripts.
Finally starting on time at Surfline Aloha and Epic sims on Saturday 26 April 2008, both sims crashed about two hours into the competition (or just after Heat 4) and the spectator sim, Surfline Aloha, took one hour to return! However, Heat 5 had was already underway on Surfline Epic by that point and Heat 6, the Semi-Finals and the Finals continued as planned (in record time considering the disruptions to the sim).
"Considering all the problems that led up to the Shortboard Pro, we had some awesome surfing today," said SLSA director Milo Voss proudly. "Even with the sim crashes we had a sucessful competition with some of the best surfers in Second Life competing against each other. It was an exciting competition, although we are all happy to leave all the technical issues behind us and look forward to a smooth competition at Neart!"
With its fair share of no shows, competitor browser crashes and real life issues, twelve surfers made it into the Semi-Finals including Pova, DeVinna Toll ranked second in the season standings, Colleen Brennan, ranked third, and VW Sands who is ranked 7th. Colleen, Craig Stallion and Desirae Beaumont who all averaged 14.5 points during the Semis, went through. However, Pova saw his browser crash and was not able to continue his heat, leaving Colleen, Craig and VW to lead the heat. Despite VW's 14.16 points (equal to Abel Halderman and DeVinna Toll) only the top two scorers in his heat (Colleen and Craig) could go through to the final and he also had to go back and sit on the benches.
Congratulations to Abel Halderman on his first podium appearance at an SLSA surfing competition and for winning a historic Surfline Shortboard Pro. Well done also to second place Desirae Beaumont, third place Craig Stallion, the organisers and the SurfWatch crew.
"The level of competition was very high, especially in the finals, although Pova was missed," said a slightly shocked Abel. "I had some good rides and the conditions were favourable for me. I'm also proud of Team Tsunami, which ended up with three members in the finals."
FINALISTS & FINALS HEAT SCORES
1. Abel Halderman (14.83 points)
2. Desirae Beaumont (14.50 points)
3. Craig Stallion (14.00 points)
4. Wilfrid DeCuir (13.83 points)
5. DeVinna Toll (13.66 points)
6. Colleen Brennan (13.00 points)
SEMI-FINALISTS (semis heat score, overall score)
7. VW Sands (14.16 points, 29.32 points)
8. Rani Decosta (12.66 points, 28.16 points)
9. Express Zenovka (13.16 points, 26.16 poins)
10. Bobbi Laval (12.66 points, 25.49 points)
11. Socks Clawtooth (8.00 points, 20.83 points)
12. Pova Rustamova (3.66 points, 18.32 points)
FINALISTS' SEMIS SCORES
Colleen Brennan (14.50 points, finalist)
Craig Stallion (14.50 points, finalist)
Desirae Beaumont (14.50 points, finalist)
Abel Halderman (14.16 points, finalist)
DeVinna Toll (14.16 points, finalist)
Wilfrid DeCuir (13.50 points, finalist)
Updated scores as of 28 April 2008. Note: the semis heat scores are the scores awarded in the semis heats only, for purposes of ranking in the competition and SLSA season ranking, semi-finalists' scores are calculated by adding the semi finalist's first heat and semi finals heat scores together (i.e. overall scores for the competition).
Photo credit: Dharma Austin
Up-dated story 28 April 2008
SurfWatch Results: All the results from Saturday's competition (26 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: And now, completely new heat line-ups! (26 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Surfline heats draw announced (24 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: New surfboard ruling for Surfline (24 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Surfline reopening celebration, Thursday (23 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: New boards for Shortboard Pro (22 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Rezzable changes Surfline venue (17 Apr 08)
SurfWatch:SurfLine Shortboard Pro competition postponed (5 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Second Life grid lock-down could stop SurfLine competition (5 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Wave concerns continue to dog SurfLine preparations (4 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Tide turns as Shortboard Pro Heats Drawn (3 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Linden Labs Code Change Threatens Second Life Surfing (2 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: New waves, new sim for SurfLine Shortboard Pro (2 Apr 08)
SurfWatch: Registrations close for Surfline (25 Mar 08)
SurfWatch: SLSA announces competition date changes (13 Mar 08)
URL: Surfline finals video on YouTube (Video credit: Sally LaSalle)
SLURL: SurfLine Aloha
Posts
5 comments:
Interesting results. A judge's best friend wins the whole thing and his entire team makes it into the finals. What are the odds?
I KNEW this was going to come up.
*rolls his eyes and shakes his head* Well Mr. or Mrs. 'Anonymous'....the other TWO judges must have seen something too. I did not judge by myself pal. Wait, I got it, we were all in on it together and it is one big conspiracy against you! That's it. Sounds like a big case of sour grapes to me.
Milo
to Anonymous Number One:
Get a life. This is SL surfing.
There was no cheating.
There were judges.
If you are not happy bitch to them.
See what they say.
Listen to what they say.
Accept what they say.
Or...don't compete in the future if you can't stand the frying pan stay out of the heat as we say in Texas.
I wonder if #1 anonymous joined the event, as spectator? watched the entire competition or just read the blog and commented?
HE WON CAUSE HE WAS FEKIN ASWOME ON THE DAY - i watched his runs everytime - i was out there as u know me DEVINNA TOLL ? k so incase u think its me who said it your wrong....ver y well deserved win....well done from my part Abel and for future comps us normal surfers dont think like this k buddy =)just jealous the old anonymous is dudey
Post a Comment