The 31st annual Victoria contest is in the bag.

Today's competition started out early with partly sunny skies and very skimmable waves down at West St beach.  The pro quarters started early and were stacked.  Several heats were too close to call, but in the end Bill Bryan, Grady Archbold, Jamie Lovett, Paulo Prietto, Sam Stinnett, and Morgan Just made it to the semi-finals.

Heat one consisted of Sam Stinnett, Bill Bryan and Jamie Lovett.

This all regular footer heat was stacked to say the least.  Professional rookie Sam Stinnett had been turning heads all weekend and Bill and Jamie were taking no chances.  Bill was pretty clearly the winner of this heat and most thought that Sam Stinnett had squeaked by Jamie in what could have been the upset of the year.  But it was not to be as Jamie made his second final at the contest in as many years.  After speaking with one judge it was possible that Sam didn't have enough lefts on the score sheets.  Regardless, Sam looked happy.  Great job Sam.

The all goofy foot heat number two consisted of Paulo Prietto, Morgan Just and Grady Archbold.

Grady started things off strong with a 360 shove it on the lip and a nice wrap cover up.  Morgan went next throwing down many trick variations on the small surging waves, as well as finding a couple nice wraps.  Meanwhile Grady was running back and forth loading up on trick based points as well, sticking most everything.  Besides a couple nice frontsides, Paulo seemed to be having trouble finding his wave for most of the heat.  Towards the end he finally found a nice lip and landed a 360 suvit on the way out to a nice bash, which could have been the best scoring wave of the heat.  Most people thought Morgan and Grady were going to make it out of this heat, but after the tie breaker, Paulo barely squeaked by to earn his spot in the finals.

It became clear during the semi finals that the conditions were degrading fast with the rising tide and they wanted to get the pro finals out of the way as soon as possible.

So as soon as the results were tallied, the pro finals was underway.  Bill was off to an early lead landing every trick and critical turn he attempted.  It was clear early on that the real battle in this heat was for second place.  Congrats to Bill for securing his 14th Pro victory at the event.  Jamie was able again to find a few barrels to ride and threw in some tricks for good measure.  Morgan and Paulo were both off to a slow start.  However, Morgan was able to start things up made way through the heat when he got a nice frontside air on a secondary, landed it, then popped a lofty alley-oop.  Paulo was able to string together some nice frontside pops and a backside slash, but again appeared to be struggling to find the right wave.  Towards the end of the heat Paulo was the only rider left with waves.  Jamie in particular was told that he was out of waves, but still continued to run on a wave that Paulo was going for, in order to block Paulo from getting the wave.  This was over the protest of everyone in the judges tent.  It was judged as interference and potentially wound up costing him a second or even first place finish, in addition to Paulo not getting the wave.  When the results were tallied it all shook out like this:

1. Bill Bryan
2. Morgan Just
3. Jamie Lovett
4. Paulo Prietto
5. Sam Stinnett
6. Grady Archbold
7. Brad Domke
8. Keith Fowler

Congratulations to Victoria Skimboards for throwing another successful event and to all the supporting sponsors for helping to make it happen.

Other Resources
Offical Discussion Thread
Day One Contest Coverage
Video Coverage Of Four Pro Heats
Skimboarder Magazine's Myspace Blog (results & pics)
More Contest Photos From Teddy Parker
 

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