Irons exits
via Backdoor

The world champ says right-handers
are his nemesis as he fails to defend
Pipeline Masters and Triple Crown titles

Andy Irons' year is over. Early for the first time in three years.

The 26-year-old professional surfer from Hanalei, Kauai, earned his third straight world championship this year, but there will be no third consecutive Pipeline Masters and Triple Crown championships.

Irons was eliminated in the third round yesterday at the 34th annual Rip Curl Pro Pipeline Masters at the Banzai Pipeline, the season finale for the World Championship Tour as well as the series-ender for the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, a series of three big events on Oahu's North Shore.

"The waves were really good, but I kept going on the right-handers (at the section of the Pipeline known as Backdoor) and wasn't making them," Irons said. "It's been a wild week. Surf (a previous competition) day at Pipe (on Tuesday), the next at Waimea (for the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational), and then we're back at Pipe again. Bummer to come up short, but it's been amazing. I'm still stoked. My job is done for the year."

Conditions were about as good as it gets at the infamous Pipeline, with quality waves in the 12- to 20-foot-face range.

Irons entered the Pipeline Masters as the two-time defending champion of the world's longest-running surfing event, which also serves as the WCT finale. He had also won the prestigious award that goes to the best overall performer in the Triple Crown series the last two years.

Even more amazing, over 2002-03, Irons became the only surfer ever to twice pull off the very rare trifecta of winning the world, Triple Crown and Pipeline Masters championships in the same year (Kelly Slater did it just once, in 1995).

With his third world title already wrapped up in Brazil last month at the penultimate WCT event, and a win at the second Triple Crown event -- the O'Neill World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach -- earlier this month, Irons had the chance for the trifecta again entering the third day of four for the Pipeline Masters, but fell short with a fourth-place showing in his heat with just 10.83 points (out of 20 maximum) for his top two waves.

"I took the whole enchilada this year," said Irons, referring to his third straight world title on the WCT, which was 11 events this year. He is only the third surfer in history to win as many as three world titles in a row. Florida's Slater, with five of his record six coming in a row from 1994-98, and Australia's Mark Richards, with four straight from '79-82, are the others.

A Triple Crown title and another at Pipeline "would have been nice to top it off, but it didn't happen. Hopefully my brother (Bruce) wins," Irons said.

Fresh from his huge win at the Eddie Aikau event on Wednesday, Bruce Irons will at least have a chance.

Apparently still on a roll, the 25-year-old won both his heats yesterday, advancing out of the third round and into the quarterfinals with 17.40 points.

The Pipeline Masters champ in 2001 (just before his brother won in 2002 and '03), Bruce Irons' first wave in the third round scored one of two perfect 10s for the event, and he has greatly improved his chances of qualifying for the 2005 WCT by making the cut. There are 16 surfers who will be competing for the title (the waiting period for last day of Pipeline Masters lasts through Monday).

"It's been a crazy couple of days," Bruce Irons said. "I knew I had to make some heats (to qualify), and I'm real comfortable out here."

Other Hawaii surfers to advance included current Triple Crown points leader Sunny Garcia, who has won the series a record five times already, and Kalani Robb (winner of the heat Andy Irons lost), Jamie O'Brien and Pancho Sullivan.

Notables to go down included Hawaii surfers Shane Dorian and Mikey Bruneau, the trials winner who earned his way into the main event, and Australia's Joel Parkinson and Taj Burrow.

But all the other surfers still alive may only continue chasing Slater if the surfer -- who has also won a record five Pipeline Masters -- keeps performing as he did in the third round.

Slater picked up the highest overall heat score of the event so far -- a near-perfect 19.83 -- in the third-round immediately following Andy Irons' loss, and also scored the other perfect 10 on a backdoor barrel ride about midway through the heat.

"It turned into a dream heat," Slater, 32, said. "It's nice to finish the last contest of the year with a couple heats like I've had so far. The Pipe Masters is up for grabs, especially since Andy is out now. We'll see what happens."

The competition will conclude today, conditions permitting.