OP PRO SURFING CHAMPIONSHIPS : Curren Bows Out for Mom’s Nuptials

Some guys will go through anything just to get to the Op Pro, and other guys, well, they could take it or leave it.

Richie Lovett survived snow and ice and two days of missed flights and running through airports to surf in Round 3. Tom Curren, who received a wild-card bid that allowed him to skip all five trial rounds and the first round of the main event, decided at the last minute he didn’t have time to compete in the Op Pro.

Curren was signing autographs on the Huntington Beach boardwalk when Op contest organizer Allen Seymour spoke to him. Curren said that because his mother was getting married Saturday night, he wouldn’t be able to stay and surf the contest.

“I’m disappointed because I personally was looking forward to seeing him surf,” contest director Ian Cairns said. “And I feel that all of us who have competed successfully have a big debt to repay to a sport that’s been really good to us.”

Curren won the Op Pro three times and was crowned world champion surfer in 1985, 1986 and 1990. He now lives in France but travels eight months of the year filming promotional videos for his sponsor.

“He’s able to live at the level he does because of competition,” Cairns said. “I feel he owes this contest and surfing in America.

“The good thing is that spot opened up for someone else.”

Cairns selected four surfers seeded in lower rounds who compete regularly on the Bud Surf Tour. He put the names in a hat and drew Nate Acker of Santa Cruz. Acker was originally seeded in Round 4 so Curren’s withdrawal moves him up three rounds.

But as indifferent as Curren is, the majority of surfers would sacrifice more than their weekend to surf the Op Pro. Lovett, 21, from Manly, Australia, may be the extreme. His dedication to the sport remains even in the face of sharks and tidal waves.

Last summer, a shark bumped Lovett and circled his board twice before a wave from nowhere lifted him to safety. Then two months ago, a tidal wave, which hit a remote surfing village in Java, where Lovett was on a promotional photo trip two months ago, killed 2,000 people.

After a month’s recovery from the leg injuries sustained in the tidal wave, Lovett returned to competition in the July 13 Gunston 500 in Durban and the Jeffries Bay Billabong Classic the next week in Jeffries Bay, South Africa.

Lovett started his journey to the Op when he boarded a plane in Jeffries Bay, South Africa, on Monday. He needed to catch a flight to Johannesburg, before flying on to London and finally to Los Angeles.

“It was really, really cold in Johannesburg and the plane started to ice over,” Lovett said. “It was six hours before they told us the flight was canceled. Then we had to go through the whole commotion of getting our luggage and checking into a hotel.”

Lovett, Richard Marsh, Simon Law and several others finally caught a plane the next morning at 11. In London, they learned they had missed their flight and again checked into a hotel and waited.

A late flight out of London made the situation appear worse.

In the air over Las Vegas, Lovett slid his credit card through the airphone and dialed Al Hunt, tour representative for the Assn. of Surfing Professionals.

“He said ‘I’m coming, I’m coming. Can you hold my heat?’ ” Hunt said. ‘I said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ When I told Ian (Cairns) he postponed the heat.’

When Lovett’s plane landed at Los Angeles International Airport, his buddies, who were seeded in later rounds, ran interference as Lovett sprinted through customs and the rest of the sprawling airport.

“I finally got to the beach five minutes before my original heat but luckily it was postponed,” Lovett said. “I got a chance to surf the other side of the pier and warm up, which was great because it’s so different here. I was coming from a place with perfect right-hand waves.”

When Lovett finally got into the water to compete just before 5 p.m. he found five useful waves in rather weak conditions and scored high enough to advance.

“I felt pretty good once I got out there,” he said. “I hadn’t surfed in three days and I usually surf three times a day.

“I’ve had so much bad luck. I can tell stories until I’m 80.”

Notes

Today’s schedule: 6-11:20 a.m. Men’s surfing trials Round 4, heats 1-16; 11:20 a.m.-4:40 p.m. Men’s surfing trials Round 5, heats 1-16; 4:40-7:20 p.m. women’s main event Round 1, heats 1-8.