Mick Fanning (AUS), 28, has been crowned the 2009 ASP World Champion, following a stunning performance at the Banzai Pipeline today.

Heading into the final stop of the 2009 ASP World Tour season, Fanning held the ASP ratings’ lead over fellow Gold Coast surfer Joel Parkinson (AUS), 28, and with Parkinson’s Round 3 exit in today’s Billabong Pipe Masters at the hands of wildcard Gavin Gillette (HAW), 23, Fanning secured his second ASP World Title.

“I’m just a bit overwhelmed right now and I don’t quite know what to say,” Fanning said. “It was hard out there. I was trying to get ready for my heat and then Gavin (Gillette) got that one score as I was paddling out and, I don’t know, I just sort of slowed down.”

For the first time since 2003, the ASP World Title came down to the final event of the season at the Billabong Pipe Masters. “This title is way more fun,” Fanning said. “I was much more relaxed for this one – besides the last few days, I was really nervous.”

Mick Fanning : photo ASP/CI Cestari via Getty Images

The 2009 ASP World Tour season will go down in history as one of the most dramatic, with Parkinson winning three of the first five events before Fanning rallied in the latter half of the season to overtake his good friend.

“I knew I was surfing well,” Fanning said. “It was just a matter of getting that result. I knew it was going to turn around sooner or later. I don’t know, it’s weird the way the world works.”

Fanning’s 2009 ASP World Tour results are as follows:

Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast: Equal 3rd
Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach: Equal 5th
Billabong Pro Teahupoo: Equal 9th
Hang Loose Santa Catarina Pro: Equal 5th
Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay: Equal 17th
Hurley Pro Trestles: WINNER
Quiksilver Pro France: WINNER
Billabong Pro Mundaka: Equal 9th
Rip Curl Pro Search: WINNER
Billabong Pipeline Masters: Equal 9th

In the end, and reminiscent of Fanning’s 2007 ASP World Title (clinched in Brazil), the lightning-fast natural-footer was in the water with Parkinson (in between heats) as the scene unfolded. The two lifelong friends embraced, exchanged words and paddled in separate directions.

“We just sort of sat there and hugged and chatted about what’s happened over the last few days and how nervous we both were,” Fanning said. “It was hard to watch what happened to him this year. He had such a stranglehold on the tour and then he had that ankle injury, so as a friend it was hard to watch that. If I wasn’t in the race I would have been gunning for Joel for sure.”

For securing the 2009 ASP World Title, Fanning has also been awarded and extra $50,000 from the Vans Triple Threat bonus package.

While the 2009 ASP World Title has been decided, the 2009 ASP World Tour season is far from over with one more day of competition remaining at the Billabong Pipe Masters. Following his clinching of the 2009 ASP World Title, Fanning fell to Dean Morrison (AUS), 28, in the opening heat of Round 4.

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CORONA, Calif., (Dec. 10, 2009) – In what was quite possibly the most epic surf competition of all-time, the 25th annual Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau, fueled by Monster Energy, an amazing heat battle for the inaugural $10,000 Monster Energy Drop award between Chile’s Ramon Navarro and Californian Greg Long quickly became the stuff of legend in the monstrous surf of Hawaii’s Waimea Bay.

Surfing head-to-head in the third heat of the second and final round, both Long and Navarro made history by putting up the second and third perfect 100-point scores, respectively, in the eight events that have been run in the past quarter century. Long opened with a massive four-story elevator drop, standing on the tail of his 12-foot board all the way through the bottom before getting detonated in a 60-foot wall of white water.

The crowd and announcers were on their feet in amazement. At the time, Long looked to have the Monster Energy Drop award in the bag. Then it was Navarro’s turn in the all-star big wave lineup.

The son of a Chilean fisherman, Navarro dropped down the face of a wave equal to that of Long’s, in an arguably more difficult goofy foot stance (right foot forward) and, avoiding the nuclear explosion at the wave’s base, rode the giant out through the middle of a churning Waimea Bay. So big was the three wave set that encased Navarro, fans on the beach and those on the Live Webcast weren’t able to grasp the scope of what had just happened as Navarro literally disappeared behind another wave in the middle of the bay.

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