By Lauren Cohen and Nicky Blatch
It's been an exhilarating week for South Africa's longest-serving World Championship Tour (WCT) campaigner, East London surfer Greg Emslie.
In powerful six- to eight-foot breaks at Supertubes in Jeffreys Bay on Friday, Emslie chalked up his best Billabong Pro result - a joint third place with rookie US surfer Timmy Reyes.
it was Emslie's best result yet on the tour, which he joined 10 years ago.
He beat Taylor Knox to reach the quarter-finals for the fourth time, and then knocked out Joel Parkinson to move to the semi-finals for the first time - but then lost to defending champion and this year's runner-up Andy Irons.
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Irons lost in the final to American world No 1 Kelly Slater in a nail-biting head-to-head clash.
With only 35 seconds to go and needing to score 9.23 out of a possible 10 to win, a set of waves appeared on the horizon allowing Slater to find the winning score, earning him $30 000 (R200 000) in prize money and 1 200 points to strengthen his lead in the ASP World Championship Tour ratings.
Emslie's career has been gaining momentum in recent years, gaining his top rating of 20th in 2003. This week, as in last year's event, the plucky 28-year-old again took out Australian Taj Burrow in round 3, and he proved his current hot form by advancing straight from the first to the third round in his first heats.
The 2005 event also saw him achieving the third-highest ride in the contest when he scored a near-perfect 9.60 points against Burrow on Wednesday.
A physically drained Emslie said he was "very pleased and happy" with his performance.
"Obviously I would have loved to have been in the final but I am happy," he said. "We surfed in tough conditions and it was a hard day's surfing.
It was not only a surfing contest, it was like an Iron Man, with a lot of paddling."
Emslie said he would be taking a "slow drive" back to East London on Friday night. "There will be no celebrations - I'll take it easy and have some beers with friends later.
"The whole event was incredible. It was frustrating waiting for waves, but it ended off with a big bang and great waves."
Emslie enjoyed a quiet braai with father Jon and friends on Thursday night and said he "felt pretty good" ahead of the final. He added that he hoped for the "six-to-eight-foot solid waves".
The blond surfer is engaged to fellow East Londoner Chanté van der Vyver and the couple plan to wed in January.
Meanwhile, media director Paul Botha said winner Slater started the day's fourth-round heats in "absolutely devastating" form, scoring an impressive 9.8 out of 10 to defeat Australian Jake Paterson. "The day started with perfect one-metre waves, which became slightly choppier later for the semis and finals when they were between two and three metres."
The warmer weather drew one of the biggest crowds in 20 years.
"There were nine international TV crews and three or four local crews covering the event." Botha said.
About 200 000 people worldwide had followed the event on the official website, www.billabong.com
The top-ranked 45 surfers in the world participated in the event.
- This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Argus on July 23, 2005
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