Team Rip Curl Cleans Up Padang-Padang for the Rip Curl Cup 2014 Opening Ceremony

Team Rip Curl Cleans Up Padang-Padang for the Rip Curl Cup 2014 Opening Ceremony

04 July 2014, Padang-Padang, Bali: As is traditional the day before the Rip Curl Cup Opening Ceremony each year, the Rip Curl crew and surf team spend the morning at Padang-Padang searching every nook and cranny of the beach, hillside and parking lots picking up plastic and all other forms of trash that stack up with all the tourists coming to enjoy the beautiful sandy beach, the warm water, and the amazing view.

At today’s beach clean up, the Rip Curl crew was joined by some energetic volunteers including Udayana University exchange students, the Padang-Padang Boardriders Club, and members of the local community.  At the end of the day they had filled up 30 big garbage bags full of trash and left a nice clean scene behind.

A special guest that joined in the clean up today was Rip Curl pro surfer Francisco Alves from Portugal, who had arrived the day before and is here to compete in the Rip Curl Cup.  “ I’m very happy to be here in Bali,” said Alves. “This island is magic, and to spend my first morning with all the Rip Curl Team and make sure that we save and respect what Mother Nature and God gave to us, I couldn’t be more happy,” he added.

The waiting period for the 11^th annual Rip Curl Cup Padang-Padang, long known as the Ultimate Tuberiding Contest and Bali’s longest running professional surfing contest, will begin on July 5^th and end on August 17^th, giving Huey a full six weeks to deliver the exacting conditions that will see the 24 of the finest international and local tubemasters competing in the spitting green barrels of the Balinese Pipeline.

In a departure from the previous year’s format, this year’s Rip Curl Cup will see 24 rather than 32 competitors: 12 international icons and 12 of Indonesia’s finest barrel masters.  “With the world watching via our live webcast, we see the 4-man heat format detracting from the purity of surfing a virtually empty Padang-Padang lineup.  Having just two surfers in the water allows both the surfers and the audience to really focus and enjoy this exciting event,” cites Rip Curl’s SE Asia Marketing Manager James Hendy as the reason for this year’s change in format.  

With an exciting lineup of tuberiding specialist invitees including Jamie O’Brien, Chris Ward, Kekoa Bacalso, Bruno Santos, last year’s runner up Jacob Willcox, Rizal Tanjung, Garut Widiarta, and last year’s winner Mega Semadhi taking on Bali’s most iconic barrel, stoked surf fans will be frothing to get on-line and view all the action when the green light calls the competitors into action, as the 2014 Rip Curl Cup will be broadcast globally at live.ripcurl.com, and it can be viewed on smartphones with the Rip Curl Live Events App.  

The 24 competitors will be competing not only for their share of the $10,000 prize purse but also for “The Cup”.  The local Balinese artists at MOD Jewelry, who have also made Association of Surfing Professionals championship rings and awards in the past, designed this coveted trophy. Hand carved from teak wood and inlayed with silver, the bowl is carved into the shape of a flower and is mounted above a piece of wood made to look like a craggy chunk of the Padang-Padang reef. Each year the cup is filled with Bintang beer and the winner must skull it all down on the victory podium.  That is truly the Grand Prize of the event!

Tomorrow will see the Rip Curl Cup Padang-Padang Opening Ceremony kicking off the beginning of the waiting period, which runs from July 5 to August 17, and includes the introduction of the 24 surfers selected for the 2014 Rip Curl Cup and the announcing of the heat draw, followed by a Balinese Kecak dance

 
 
 
 
 

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HISTORY

About the Asian Surfing Championships

The goal of the Asian Surfing Championships is to grow the sport of surfing in Asia from the grassroots level by assisting each country in creating organized and sanctioned events that will develop the skills of their surfers in healthy competition as well as to draw attention to their area for the progression of surfing locally, nationally, and throughout the Asian region. 

Organized surfing competitions have historically been the best medium for the development of surfers and for the sport of surfing.  Learning how to compete fairly and to being disciplined in training and competition key assets needed not only for surfing but also for life.

The ASC works with the local, national and multinational event sponsors and organizers to maximize the results of these competitive surfing events towards accomplishing the goals of sharing the sport of surfing and bringing positive economic, social, and environmental benefits to the people in these Asian countries.

With a multi-stop and multi-national surfing tour, Asian Surfing Champions will be crowned each year in multiple divisions including Open, Women, Longboard, Junior, and Master.