Well half a DC anyway NSP Pro here's a write up on the race .Trav was behind from the start with a small beach run instead of the traditional water start but was still first to the golden bouy. The results show just how close this race was with the top 10 finishing some 30 sec's apart. Here,s the write up from Sup Racer
Day Two: Travis Grant Overcomes Injury For Inspirational Win While Annabel Anderson Makes It A Double-Double
After the energy surrounding yesterday???s epic Elite Race Finals, surely there was no way today???s 10 mile Distance Race could come anywhere close to matching it. But someone forgot to tell that to Travis Grant and Annabel Anderson???
Travis was forced out of yesterday???s main event due to injury, having dislocated his knee while surfing in Hawaii just two weeks ago. It was a cruel blow for the Aussie, who has been on fire this year and would have started one of the hot favourites for sure. Trav can hardly walk right now, let alone run, so the Elite Race and its soft-sand chicane run would have been impossible.
But he can still paddle.
So Travis signed up for the Distance Race, still not sure if his leg would hold up but determined to show his true form. With the traditional Distance Race water-start being scrapped this year in favour of a beach start (which involves a short run into the water), Travis was on the back foot from the beginning. Literally. But in a sign of just how strong this guy is, the Molokai-2-Oahu champ was first to the Golden Buoy that lay 400 meters off the beach. From there the likes of Travis, Danny Ching, Beau O???Brian and Kai Lenny led the pack as the field started to thin out and the inevitable draft trains began to take shape.
While there were a few classy Unlimited paddlers out front (Chuck Glynn, Ryan Helm and Brennan Rose controlled the front of the race on their 17 and 18 footers), most of the big names were in the Elite 14 foot division. The lead draft train was quickly whittled down to 15 paddlers as its pace motored along. Danny Ching spent much of the race on the front, as did Travis and his fellow Gold Coaster Beau O???Brian. The other top guys sat in the draft train, either hanging on for dear life or playing it smart and saving energy.
As the group rounded the halfway turning buoy near San Clemente Pier, the group was still looking safely bunched together. This was bad for Travis: Being unable to run, there was no way he could hit the beach in a pack ??? the other guys would sprint straight past him on the final, 40 meter soft-sand run up to the finish line.
So Trav???s strategy was clear: He had to somehow break the pack so he could hit the beach with a clear lead, but that was always going to be difficult when Danny Ching and Beau O???Brian were taking turns setting the pace at the front. Travis had no choice though and so at the 8 mile mark he went for it, slowly drifting off the front of the train and moving about 30 meters closer to the beach, where he began paddling in parallel to the lead pack.
The move paid off and pretty soon Travis had roughly a ten-board-length lead on Danny and the rest of the pack, but it was going to be almost impossible to hold onto. Like a lone escapee in a Tour de France mountain stage, Travis simply had to grit his teeth and soldier on, all while setting his own pace and not getting any relief from drafting.
Coming towards the final turning buoy, which was sitting 300 meters out from the finish line on the beach, Travis was still, somehow, in the lead. Just reaching that first buoy on his own was an amazing performance. Trav was at a huge disadvantage to the rest of the field in this race: His knee caused him to have a slow start and a really slow finish, plus it impacted his paddling technique as well, where a lot of pressure goes on the legs. But that wasn???t even the worst of it: Because he couldn???t run to the line, Trav had to finish clear of the pack and that meant he had to break away early. So for the last two miles of the race, while most of the guys were utilising drafting (except for Danny, who was pulling the train), Travis had to do all the work and set his own pace.
If we stopped the race at that buoy it would have been fitting, but unfortunately the finish was on the beach and Trav still had work to do. Rounding the buoy about 6-8 board lengths ahead of Danny, Beau and Zane, Travis desperately tried to find a bump that would take him to the beach with a clear gap. But it wasn???t happening. Two bumps went through that were too small to catch, then a third one appeared and it looked like Danny would catch it and surf up alongside Travis. But the defending Distance Race champ missed it by half a stroke allowing Travis, who was still 10 meters ahead, to catch it by himself and surf into the beach alone.
As he hit the sand, Trav literally hobbled up the line to hold on and record a memorable win by just a few seconds from Danny, with an absolutely stellar third-place performance from Zane Schweitzer (seriously, this guy has been a revelation the past 48 hours???) followed closely by Starboard teammate Beau O???Brian in fourth.
Travis Grant???s win was equally impressive and inspirational, making for a sweet end to the bitter taste of having to miss the Elite Race yesterday. It also caps off a huge year for Trav, with a number of wins throughout the season (including his epic Molokai-2-Oahu victory two months ago) showing he???s one of the very best.
Trav is also the only person, ever, to beat Danny in either a California or Hawaii BOP Distance Race, ending Ching???s six-in-a-row streak.
So the long distance event, which has generally been a fairly mellow afterthought in comparison with the Elite Race festivities, had suddenly created a classic race??? and that was just the men.
