Margaret River local, Ryan Hardy (WA, AUS) has conquered bodyboarding's finest and some of the craziest conditions Mother Nature could produce to claim the second event on the 2011 IBA World Tour, the IBA Box Pro. In wild and dangerous five-metre plus waves, 31 year-old Hardy defeated Brazil's Magno Oliveira (Guarapari) in a 30-minute final, earning himself 2,000 valuable Grand Slam Series ratings points and second place on the IBA World Ratings heading into event three scheduled for Arica, Chile beginning May 20th. Hardy choked back tears as he accepted his trophy on the presentation dais in front of his wife, Leah and newborn son, Oliver, while friends and fellow Margaret River locals, cheered the most prestigious win of his career. “It means so much to win at my home break and with your friends and family and everyone here from my hometown, it's the biggest win of my career by far. To get the conditions we have and to be able to win is just incredible, it's a dream come true, said Hardy. Hardy did not drop a heat the entire event, and admitted 20 years of surfing the break was the major factor in his win, particularly on a day where riders were faced with giant waves that threatened to close out the entire bay from Margaret River's Surfers Point, to the Box itself. I could see the guys who hadn't surfed out there much were getting pulled out of position. Knowing the way the water moved around on the reef was a huge advantage. When a wave breaks at the Box, it's much more intense than a lot of places, you have these swells that travel so far through the Indian Ocean and then hit this shallow slab of reef. It can be dangerous, but if you know which ones to catch, then it's easily one of the most exciting waves in the world, said Hardy. I've surfed it this big before, but never in competition. Today it was twice as big as forecasted, so it definitely caught everyone by surprise. Hardy's first leapt to prominence on the international bodyboarding stage came when he claimed the Tahiti Skins at the notorious Teahupoo in 2000. His second major win was at Cronulla's Shark Island near Sydney in 2006. He has also won at Hawaii's famous Banzai Pipeline in 2009. Oliveira's runner-up performance was world-beating; the 26 year-old eliminated two world champions on the final day, taking out reigning champion Amaury Lavernhe (REU) in the semi-finals and six-time world champion Guilherme Tamega (BRA) in the quarter-finals to post what is easily the best result of his career. It was the best result of my life for sure. These are the kind of waves are the waves I like best. There are giant waves and it's shallow and pretty dangerous. You don't see any other sports run in these kind of conditions. I'm proud of being a bodyboarder and days like this, said Oliveira. Oliveira's path to the final also would not have been possible if it were not for the implementation of the unique new three round non-elimination format at the IBA Box Pro. Oliveira missed his first heat entirely when he went for a warm up session at a nearby break during, but good placings in his following two outings saw him survive the cut and qualify for Round 4. Miracles happen, I went through a lot of miracles to make the final, laughed Oliveira. So I knew I could do it. But there wasn't many waves in the final. I had a lot of cramps in my last heat. It was so inconsistent. I had a bad selection, maybe if I had more time against Ryan, it was tough, he added. If a single move summed up the commitment of the riders in such wild conditions today, Oliveira's invert air on a stepped-out 10-ft plus Box mutation during his semi was prime example. With one eye on the lip and the other on the reef lurking just inches below the surface, Oliveira punched for heavens and landed the giant air, with the wave gobbling him whole moments after impact. Even reigning Wold Champion, Lavernhe, who was eliminated by Oliveira in the heat, was impressed. I was in the lineup and I had priority. I saw him take off on that set wave and I thought, Okay, that's good for me, He's going to be wasting his time, then I looked behind and I just saw his body flying through the air and I was like, Oh, sh#t! That's a big air! I asked him, Did you land it? and he said yeah. That was the biggest move of the comp. He was ripping the whole competition, so I am stoked for him. South African, Mark McCarthy (Richard's Bay) finished equal third alongside Lavernhe today, McCarthy falling victim to Hardy's rampaging hometown finals run. Though there was a glimmer of hope for the visiting 27 year-old, he had Hardy on the ropes with less than a third of their semi-final remaining. Ryan was really patient. We had like 15 minutes where the sets poured in from the wrong direction and messed up the lineup. So we had to wait for it to clean up, then Ryan was lucky to get those good ones and he surfed them like a champ. I knew I was ahead for most of the heat, then Ryan got those s

Just eight riders remain in contention for event number two on the International BodyBoard World Tour, The Box Pro, with quarter-final placings being decided today in heaving four-to-six feet (two-metre) waves. Local Ryan Hardy (Margaret River, WA), reigning Men’s IBA World Tour champion Amaury Lavernhe (REU) and multiple Men’s IBA World Tour champion, Guilherme Tamega (BRA) were among the stand-outs on a day that saw blood lost to the reef and at least one board broken in two. Former two-time IBA world champion Damien King (Port Macquarie, NSW, AUS) received medical attention for gashes to his face after being driven head-first into the reef just moments into his heat versus Mark McCarthy (ZAF), Dave Winchester (AUS) and Joe Clarke (AUS). The 32 year-old was desperately chasing a win to solidify a Round 4 berth and gave it everything he had when the rogue wave appeared. “It (the wave) came through in the first five or 10 seconds of the heat and I could see it was hitting wide, but I thought it could be a good one so I thought ‘I’ll go for it’,” explained King. “I backdoored it and I hit my face on the bottom faster than you can blink. I just got smashed, I hit real hard. I’m just lucky I didn’t hit my teeth. I knew I needed to win that heat to stay in the comp so I just kept my focus and stayed out there. You can’t get rattled when that sort of stuff happens, you need to expect it somewhere like the Box. Unfortunately things didn’t go my way today.” South African, Jared Houston (ZAF), found himself in a unique situation; the 21 year-old had his board split apart after an aerial attempt gone awry. Houston punched a huge air-forward off a wedging Box end-section and came down hard over the front of his board. It caved in beneath him, buckling under the pressure, and folded straight down the middle. “I saw that section and just went for it,” he explained. “I came down so hard my arms hit under water, I was still holding onto my board so I knew straight away it had snapped. I tried to ride out of it, but there was no way that was happening.” Houston borrowed another board from someone waiting in the channel, but the relief was short lived. It was two inches shorter than what he normally rides. “I was kinda going nowhere with it, then the guys on the ski went and picked up my back-up board and brought that to me, but I’d never ridden that either, it had no wax on it, it was so slippery. So the whole heat I was just trying to make the most of a pretty bad situation,” said Houston. Houston regrouped to advance into the quarter-finals, where he has now drawn fellow countryman, Mark McCarthy (ZAF), in an all South African match-up. The only time the pair have faced off at the elite level occurred at Pipeline two years ago with Houston getting the nod. Tamega was fortunate to survive his encounter versus IBA event wildcard, Mitch Rawlins (Broadbeach, Qld, AUS). The six-time world champion was combed for most of the 25-minute encounter, requiring two excellent scores to have a hope of progressing. Rawlins went ballistic early, putting one of the sport’s biggest names on the ropes with a near perfect 9.6 out of a possible perfect 10 for an incredible barrel followed by a huge, text-book invert air. With the highest individual wave-score of the event to his name, Rawlins then solidified his position with a second good scoring wave of 5.8 points and looked to have the heat locked away. But Tamega scraped back into contention registering a 7.9 ride, then with nothing to lose in the final seconds, caught the only breaking wave and pulled a huge backflip to take the win. “I was just waiting for the heat to be over,” said Tamega. “This little wave came to me and I thought, ‘Oh, I might as well catch this one’. It formed on the inside and gave me the biggest ramp ever and I thought, ‘Whoa!’ I just went for it and it worked, I didn’t think the judges would give it me though, I heard the score and it was just too good to be true.” Hawaiian, Jeff Hubbard is looking down the barrel at a possible trifecta, the 35 year-old bodyboarding vet is coming off two consecutive wins. One at the final event of 2010 at Fronton in the Canary Islands and the first event on the 2011 tour held in his backyard at Pipe in February. Things did not go the Hawaiian’s way the last time Hubbard competed at The Box more than eight years ago, he was eliminated early from the event in much smaller conditions. “It’s one of those things, you just gotta pretend those other wins don’t exist and just keep going for it otherwise it creates too much pressure. So my approach is in every heat is like I’m starting from scratch,” said Hubbard. “I’m pretty amped because there’s good waves coming, it’s going to be bigger than last time I competed here, it’s going to really help us. Plus it’s going to be more consistent, so you’ll see all the guys going for it, pushi