A GNARLY FINISH
Gordon outshines Beach’s Dunphy in Vans Pro final
A risky maneuver pays off big time at the East Coast Surfing Championships.
VIRGINIA BEACH — On his last wave Sunday afternoon, a swell from which Michael Dunphy had squeezed every bit of its energy, he turned back and saw Luke Gordon twisting in the air, reversing his board, then reversing it again on his way to the beach.
“At that point I knew I had lost,” said Dunphy, a Virginia Beach native who finished second to Gordon in the finals of the East Coast Surfing Championships Vans Pro 3000. “I knew my wave wasn’t good enough at the end to get to his spot.”
Dunphy, 29, grew up surfing the area from the Rudee Inlet jetty to Fifth Street. He won the event in 2014 and Sunday was runner-up for the second time. He used some of that local knowledge in search of better waves on a day in which swells were up to 6 feet, but were irregular in a northeast wind.
“The waves were changing with the tides, and you really had to pay attention when you paddled out (to start a heat),” he said. “You have to make the right call.”
That was Gordon’s thinking, too. A 19-year-old from Folly Island, S.C., on his first full season in the Qualifying Series, he waited almost 10 minutes of the 30minute final heat before selecting a wave. “I just thought timing was everything, and I wasn’t going to waste my time on anything that I didn’t think was going to be an excellent ride,” he said. “This was the finals, everything riding on it, so I was just thinking, ‘God, send me a wave,’ and he did.”