Irons on Board for World Title

Andy Irons will return home to Hawaii this week riding about as high as a pro surfer can get, having clinched his third consecutive world championship as he prepares to defend his Vans Triple Crown of Surfing title.

Irons, 26, of Princeville on Kauai, had entered the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ second-to-last World Championship Tour event in Florianopolis, Brazil, holding a comfortable points lead over his last remaining challenger, Joel Parkinson of Queensland, Australia.

He was declared champion Monday when Parkinson failed to advance beyond the third round and was mathematically eliminated.

With Parkinson trailing in his heat against wild-card entry Tanio Barreto, Irons watched from the beach, and as the heat drew to a close he found himself surrounded by reporters and well-wishers.

“Before you knew it there were five minutes left and he needed a big score, and then people were counting down and it was so surreal and didn’t seem like it really happened, but it did,” Irons said Monday in a phone interview. “Hopefully it’ll sink in and I’ll put together a better word association, but right now all I can say is that I’m seriously over the moon.”

Parkinson needed to advance to the finals of the Nova Schin Festival, which will be decided today. Had he stayed in the race, the title would have been decided at the season-ending $260,000 Rip Curl Pro Pipeline Masters, the third leg of the Triple Crown, Dec. 8-20 at the Banzai Pipeline on Oahu’s North Shore. (The first two legs are World Qualifying Series contests.)

It was at Pipeline last year that Irons prevailed in a dramatic final-heat showdown with six-time world champion Kelly Slater. Slater and Irons were ranked Nos. 1 and 2, respectively.

“That took five years off my life -- I got gray hairs much earlier than I should have and I’m glad not to have to go through that again,” Irons said. “This one is just sweet victory. There were very few bumps in the road.”

Slater, 32, of Cocoa Beach, Fla., was eliminated from this year’s world-title race in mid-October, making it clearer than ever that while he remains the sport’s most successful athlete, the powerfully fast and fluid Irons has become its dominant force.

Both will be among those dueling it out during the Triple Crown, which is considered second in difficulty and prestige only to the world title. The competition window opens Friday for the first leg, the $125,000 Vans Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa Ali’i Beach. The second leg is the $125,000 O’Neill World Cup of Surfing, Nov. 26-Dec. 7 at nearby Sunset Beach.

Among those trying to improve their standing on the WQS circuit will be Chris Ward, 26, of San Clemente, and Timmy Reyes, 22, of Huntington Beach.

Ward is ranked fourth on the WQS and has already qualified for the 2005 WCT. Reyes is ranked 12th and needs only a modest showing in either event to advance to the next level.

The WCT is comprised of the world’s top 45 surfers. The top 27 in the final standings automatically re-qualify for the following year, there are three wild-card spots, and the remaining 15 qualify from atop the WQS rankings.

Ward and Reyes’ qualifying for the WCT would provide a much-needed boost to the Southern California surfing community because there are only four Southland surfers competing on the top circuit this year -- and three of them are in their 30s. The youngest, Tim Curran of Oxnard, is 27.

Of Ward, Irons said, “The way he surfs, he could win events right from the start, or at least after he figures out the format.”