Ever since the year after his older brother Michael won the Masters with a cast on his arm in 1982, Derek Ho has provided some of the more memorable moments in surfing's most dynamic professional contest. Pipe Masters ready to go
By Greg Ambrose, Star-BulletinPipeline has been good to Derek Ho, giving him four Triple Crown of Surfing titles, two Pipeline Masters championships and a world title.
This year, Derek Ho was hoping for one last bit of Pipeline magic to possibly end his international surfing career with an exclamation point.
But he was hit with a cruel twist of fate in deepest Java when a wave smashed his knee in mid-season, and he had to abandon the World Championship Tour for surgery and long, painful rehabilitation at home in Hawaii.
For the first time in 14 years, he will miss the Pipe Masters.
It was in this meet back in 1986 that he grabbed the surfing world's attention with a wild tube ride in a beast of a wave on Christmas Eve. That ride set the standard for perfect 10-point rides at Pipeline.
It also won Derek Ho his first Pipe Masters.
He'll watch this one from the beach, but there is still much at stake in this year's $120,600 Chiemsee Gerry Lopez Pipe Masters, the last contest of the World Championship Tour season. Kelly Slater already has claimed his record fifth world title, and is keen to add an equally amazing fourth straight Pipe Masters title to his treasure trove.
Slater has no chance to claim another Triple Crown title in this third and final Triple Crown of Surfing event, and it's up to Pancho Sullivan, Kalani Robb or Sunny Garcia to win the Pipe Masters and wrest the Triple Crown award from front-running Aussies Michael Rommelse and Tony Ray.
Contest directors have from today until Dec. 20 to wait for the best waves in which to send contestants into the water. For contest information, call 638-5024.
Macdonald 50th in West Regional
Punahou's Eri Macdonald, Hawaii's three-time state cross-country champion, finished 50th in the Foot Locker Western Regional Cross-country Championships on Saturday at Woodward Park In Fresno, Calif.Macdonald's time in the 5-kilometer race (3.1 miles) was 19 minutes, 11 seconds.
5K WINNERS: Brent Pederson won the men's division and Mareike Ressing was the women's winner in the fifth annual Silvia A. Martz Memorial 5K run yesterday.
Pederson finished in 16 minutes, 3 seconds, to beat Danny Hopkins (16:30).
Ressing's time was 17:53, with Angela Schmidt second in 19:35.