Surfing Championship at Huntington Beach : Lynch Wins in 3 Heats

Tom Curren, lying on his board, could only watch helplessly. Floating near the beach, he was watching Barton Lynch, an Australian, maneuvering effortlessly and amazingly through yet another wave crest, the last of the heat.

A man who has won two consecutive world championships is rarely in that position. But the waves that rolled his way were mediocre, restricting his usual flamboyancy.

Meanwhile, there was Lynch, getting better waves with which he could unleash all his zig-zagging and aerial moves. Curren, though, had to abide by the noncooperative waves. And even though he once slipped ever so delicately through the curl of one, he still looked like a man trying to construct a mansion without a single brick.

“I had a little trouble with the waves,” said Curren, of Santa Barbara. “I fell off one of my crucial waves just when I was having a good ride.”

Curren’s words would would later take on added meaning. For Lynch, the man who beat him in the semifinals and later won the men’s title Saturday at the Op Pro Surfing Championship at Huntington Beach, was only the 12th-ranked surfer on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals Tour last year. But he entered the Huntington Beach contest as the top surfer this year and emerged as the winner of the $10,000 first prize.

Lynch wasn’t the only threat to established champions to emerge at the tournament. Sunny Garcia of Hawaii, having fought all the way through the trial heats before losing in the last possible heat of the finals, proved he can surf with the best.

Then there was Wendy Botha, a South African who has a vertical style so flashy it makes the other women seem lifeless in comparison. She again knocked off top-seeded Frieda Zamba, the world champion the last three years, in the semifinals. Botha has beaten Zamba each of the five times they have met.

Botha, whose performances were sporadic and who was ranked fifth last year, then defeated Kim Mearig, a former champion trying to keep up her enthusiasm to climb back to the top, to win the women’s division final and $3,000 in back-to-back heats.

“In almost every heat I lost last year, it was a 3-2 judging split,” Botha said. “I was just as good or better than the people beating me. I know this will be my year.”

Curren and Zamba represented only the latest in a wave of upsets throughout the contest. On the first day of main-event competition, the 2nd-, 3rd- and 10th-seeded men’s surfers fell. And it could have continued into the men’s finals.

Lynch, the more experienced surfer, was expected to easily defeat Garcia, 17, who was supposed to lack the experience and, after surfing since Monday, the stamina to compete.

The first heat of the best-of-three final worked out that way. Lynch averaged 101.9 of a possible 120 points to Garcia’s 94.8. In fact, Lynch even had a flashy ride through the pier, maintaining his balance through the north side and zig-zagging past the amateurs toward the beach. Earlier, Lynch had asked the beach marshal whether a ride through the pier would still count, and he was told it would.

“It was the perfect opportunity, because nobody had done it yet,” said Lynch, who says that in Australia, there are no piers one can surf through. “I thought it was a gamble. You don’t know when you’re taking off from the south side if it’s going to connect at the north.”

Garcia then walked back to the competitors’ area, his head shrouded by a towel, being encouraged a friend. Elsewhere, people were talking about the ride through the pier.

“That was a bloody fluke, that first one,” Lynch said. “That first one, I got some big points and opened the door. Then Sunny comes and opens it bloody wider.”

Indeed, on the first wave of the very next heat, Garcia, not quitting, shot through the pier himself and was given a 28, the highest score of any wave yet. Lynch shot the pier again, getting a 26.1. Earlier, the pier and its white water had been avoided like a retaining wall. In the second heat, though, it served as a portal for almost every ride. Lynch was never able to match Garcia’s first score and lost the second heat by an average of 100 to 97.9, forcing the deciding third heat.

“It always happens,” Lynch said, “you win the first one, then sit back, content. But the second one humbled me.”

After a 10-minute break, the third heat began. Lynch won that one decidedly, his rides averaging 96.9 to Garcia’s 88.8.

“When you go against somebody like Curren, you have a tough time getting back up for the final,” Lynch said. “I was just wasted. As soon as you get fatigued, your desire starts to go with it. The hardest thing for me was to keep that desire for 90 minutes with half-hour breaks in between.”

If Lynch remains at the top, surfing’s elite might once again find themselves lying on their boards, watching their competitors, wondering where the waves have gone.