Margaret River surfer Jack Robinson claimed an exciting victory at the 2018 Rip Curl Cup at Padang Padang in Bali last week.
On the heaviest day at Padang in recent memory, 20 year old Robinson went on a tuberiding tear, scoring three 9-point rides and a perfect 10 en route to perhaps the most impressive achievement of his young career.
“This was the best waves I’ve seen at Padang since Jamie O’Brien won it back in 2009,” said Robinson. “I was a little kid watching it then and I always wanted to be in it from that day on. Jamie was a big influence.”
The Final featured three local surfers alongside Robinson, the lone international and lone regularfoot, sparring with the treacherous caverns on his backhand.
In the decisive set of the Finals, Robinson snatched up the first wave and scored an impossible 9.90.
All three locals followed with incredible screaming tubes of their own, but all got clipped or bucked off before finding an exit.
Robinson would go on to back up his 9.90 with another impossibly long ceiling climber. The judges had already dropped the 9.90 and had nowhere to go but up, awarding a perfect 10.
The local boys continued to put up a good fight, but in the end the day belonged to the young man from WA.
For Robinson, a longtime annual visitor to Bali, it was just another day of trading epic waves with his Indonesian mates.
“We’re pretty much neighbors,” Robinson said.
“I live down in West Oz, only three hours away. It’s the same ocean, and I’ve been coming here and surfing with my friends since I was a little kid.
“To be able to surf a day like this at Padang with all of them, it doesn’t get any better than this.”
- with the World Surf League
