good morning. gosh, what a blast i had in chiba this past weekend. it’s been a while since i went to a contest in japan and i was pretty amazed on high the level of surfing is these days. gosh, the kids are ripping!!! here are the finalists of the contest….
ok, nao omura is the real deal. i haven’t seen her surf since the last time she was staying with me in hawaii. but i just seen her go from level 2 to 10. yeah, i said 10. and in her semifinal heat, her top two scores were both perfect 10’s. yeah, kelly slater and bruce irons couldn’t even do that at uluwatu, but nao did it here in onshore waist high waves. that’s pretty dam amazing and probably the first time it’s ever been done here in japan. this is her right after the historic semifinal heat. how happy can you be? congratulations nao….
now for the finalist. yeah, that’s nao on the far left. wonder what she got? yeah, 1st place. now she gets to be on tv here in japan….
this is the under 12 division finalists. the kid holding the board won it. i don’t know his name but i’m sure i’ll hear more about him in the future. all the kids were ripping in the final…
the under 16 division was pretty nuts but kashia from shikoku stood out from the rest and won it pretty easy. he just had too much power compared to the rest of the boys…
this was the 20 and under finalists. wanted to congratulate each and every competitor who gave it their all this past weekend. by watching all of them, i realized two things. one, the level of surfing in japan is at an all time high. and two, i’m getting old.. haha….
**it was good to see old time friends and to make new friends. wanted to thank everybody in chiba for being so kind. hope to make it back there again soon…
