By PHIL JARRATT
IT was just a matter of time. Chelsea Williams comes from great surfing pedigree, and she never gives up.
The combination had to get her a world title sooner or later, and last week in China, it did, making it an Aussie double as Harley Ingleby claimed his second men’s crown.
Long regarded as Australia’s best female longboarder, and a multiple women’s pro title winner at the Noosa Festival of Surfing, Chelsea had been the bridesmaid rather than the bride at four previous ASP world titles, and at several stages during the final last week in the long, peeling lefts of Riyue Bay on China’s Hainan Island, it looked like she was heading down that heartbreaking path again. But tenacity won the day for the pint-sized Gold Coaster.
Remarkably, Chelsea has met Hawaii’s two-times world champion Kelia Moniz (another young lady of impeccable surfing pedigree) four times in the final of the China event now for two wins apiece. The previous time Chelsea beat Kelia, however, the world title was decided on cumulative points over two events, so the Aussie just missed out. That’s been the story of Chelsea Williams’ pro tour career. Until now.
Chelsea had been the form surfer of the Go Pro World Longboard Titles, and went to work in the final with some outstanding nose rides early in the final. But a lull mid-final seemed to take some of her confidence and when the waves returned it was Moniz who looked dangerous. Chelsea hung onto her lead by a slim margin in the closing minutes, but the Hawaiian exercised priority and took off on a wave with scoring potential to put her into the lead. All Chelsea could do was sit out the back and pray as the judges locked in their scores. Not enough. The little Aussie battler takes the crown.
“Did that just happen? I can’t believe it!” Williams said. “I’ve wanted to win a World Longboard Title since I found out it existed.”
Meanwhile, another one of longboarding’s good guys, Harley Ingleby from Coffs Harbour, was running rampant over the clean, off-shore wind-groomed lefthanders, after a dodgy first-round start. Like Chelsea, Harley had to endure a lot of disappointment (including two third-place finishes in the world titles) before finally snaring his first crown in 2009.
Now 31, Harley had been written off as a title threat by some in China, but as the surf began to pump he applied himself brilliantly, charging through heats to meet the form surfer of the Go Pro event, Brazil’s Phil Rajzman, in the final.
An ASP tour loyalist who worked closely with Chinese officials to secure the Hainan event, Harley is equally at home on a logger or a shortboard (as he proved with a third place in this year’s Jeep Waterman Challenge at Double Island Point) but I’m sure winning another title for his progressive longboarding meant a lot to him.
But spare a thought for Phil Rajzman, the genial 2007 world longboard champion from Rio. Throughout his China campaign, he had to listen to the loud and frequent pronouncements from Hawaii that Gabriel Medina was about to make history by becoming Brazil’s first ever surfing world champion. Well, young Medina has more hair than Phil and is arguably better looking, not to mention the fact that he gets mobbed by young girls wherever he goes in Brazil, but if Medina avoids tripping over a groupie and breaking a leg at Pipeline this week, he will become Brazil’s second world champion surfer, not the first.
No-one, not even the shortboard-centric ASP blather boys, can take that away from my mate Phil Rajzman.
Vale Edi Brunetti
Not to be morbid a week before Christmas, but too many old mates have dropped off the perch this year. It must stop. Even had a brush with mortality myself, but the less said about that the better.
The latest to shuffle off this mortal coil, leaving it a much better place for his having been here, is the incomparable Edi Brunetti, late of The Jetty. Edi was 87 and in care in Melbourne when he passed, but his spirit will forever reside at Boreen Point, napkin across his arm, awaiting the evening’s first diners, or with his eye on his telescope, surveying the ocean across the Teewah sands, or promenading down Hastings Street in the finest silk, click-clacking the heels of his two-tone brogues.
An old school European gentleman whose impeccable manners often disguised his wicked wit, Edi kept a huge dictionary open on a lectern in his living room, and learnt a new word every day, with the end result that while his pronunciation was sometimes questionable, his English vocabulary was immense.
Edi had a million stories, and I loved hearing them. One he never tired of was the night that Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall came to The Jetty for dinner. While security men cased the joint, Edi took the Rolling Stone and his tall Texan to table. Mick ordered a Eumundi Lager, Jerry a glass of Evian. Edi was mortified. He didn’t have any. Perrier? The idea seemed to offend. While Jerry went back to the drinks list, Edi scurried off to get the beer.
Jagger pulled him aside. “Just give her a tap water,” he said, winking. Edi did, and Jerry said not a word.
Mick Jagger and Edi Brunetti – both stylemasters in their own way.
