Tiago Pires holds the title for the 8th Annual Nixon Surf Challenge. We were blessed with a 6-8 foot swell for the final day of the Nixon Surf Challenge, that although was a grey drizzling day, was by far the best waves ever had at the contest.

Surfers sleepily arrived to the beach at noon, after an eventful evening that kicked off with Sunny Abberton presenting in person his moving documentary The Bra Boys, followed by dinner at the spectacular La Perla Restaurant that has the most magical view of San Sebastian, along with stunning Basque cuisine. After dinner the crew took off to take over the Old Town living up to the Surf Challenges reputation, good times, fun atmosphere with great friends!

Starting the day with the quarter finals, standouts were Spain’s Gony Zubizaretta, Franco-Brazilian Eric Rebiere, Jonathan Gonzales from the Canaries, Tim Boal from France, Portugal’s Tiago Pires along with Puerto Rican Dylan Graves and Cheyne Magnusson from Maui. Gony broke his board in the shore break, Jonathan demonstrated why he is one of the best European surfers and Tiago proved that being number 3 on the WQS was no fluke. Dylan and Cheyne showed that they are a part of the new generation of high power surfers from the US. All advanced into the semi-finals.

The first heat of the semi’s saw European’s Tim Boal, Benjamin Sanchis and Jonathan Gonzales matched up with Dylan Graves. Dylan and Jonathan both scored big barrels and large open-faced waves, while Tim Boal and Benjamin Sanchis both struggled to find good waves. Second heat of the semi-finals, Tiago, Eric and Joan Duru found themselves up against Hawaiian Cheyne Magnusson. Tiago surfed the best heat from the contest scoring a perfect 10 and a high 9 all while catching twice as many waves as any other competitor in the heat. Dylan also found a huge barrel and a nice open face wave to help him push through to the final.

The final’s started out with Cheyne Magnusson jumping to a commanding lead, scoring both an 8 and a 6, however in the last 15 minuets Jonathon and Tiago both turned it on and secured high scoring waves to supersede Dylan and Cheyne. It was a tight battle between Jonathan and Tiago, and in the end it was Tiago who edged out Jonathan to secure the title of the 8th Annual Surf Challenge.

FINALISTS

1. Tiago Pires

2. Jonathan Gonzales

3. Cheyne Magnusson

4. Dylan Graves

www.nixonnow.com/surfchallenge