Damian King, from Australia, is the 2011 IBA Dropknee World Tour champion. King only needed to beat Canary Islander Ardiel Jimenez in the quarterfinals to become the champion but Jimenez led the heat until 30 seconds before the siren. King, who was chasing a 6.8, paddled into his heat winning wave with literally seconds left on the clock, got up backside, bottom turned into the bowl of the wave and did a massive snap, throwing a solid chunk of water over the back of the wave, and finished with another snap on the end of the wave. All the Australians in the competitor’s area, waited for what seemed like an eternity, for the scores to drop, a 6.9, he did it! The Australians grabbed cans of beer and ran to the water’s edge to meet King and shower him with beer. He was hoisted onto their shoulders and carried to the presentation area.
King spoke to the crowd after receiving his trophy, telling the crowd how he thought he had lost the title when he fell off on a set wave moments before he caught his winning wave. An emotional King, thanked his father in-law, Jimbo, who has been travelling with him to his last few competitions, started to choke up when explaining how important he was and quickly changed subjects and thanked the crowd.
I caught up with Damian as he walked off the winner’s podium. This is what he had to say:
You did it! Well done.
Yeah thanks.
How does it feel to know you’ve just made history?
Yeah I’m pretty stoked, it was a goal that I did really want to do and I thought I wasn’t going to get it there towards the end, then I got that last wave you know in the last, probably, ten seconds and just got the score and f*@k yeah I just can’t believe it. I’d pretty much totally given up out there. A little bit of spark in me just kept me going and I’m so glad I didn’t stop.
When did you decide you wanted to be the dropknee world champion?
I guess I went in my first event last year and ended up doing alright and getting second and a fifth in two comps and then I just thought it would be great to have a prone and a dropknee world title because prone and dropknee is both you know the same part of the sport and no-one has ever done it and so this year I was pretty focused on doing it. I went into a lot of events that I won and I didn’t get any points for, so I was pretty disappointed with that, so to win it feels like it’s justified because I did well in the ones that didn’t have points and I’m stoked.
You said thanks to Jimbo when you were up on stage. How influential has Jimbo been for you mentally?
He’s been pretty massive. You know he’s just support and just always there no matter what and I think that it’s good to have that.
Do you feel you perform better when you have someone in your corner?
Yeah it’s just good having someone in your corner, who’s going to be there for you through thick and thin. It’s good having someone who’s going to be there no matter what, it just gives you strength. He doesn’t give me pep ups, he just like a rock behind me. And he likes travelling too and getting on the beers after it as well. We have common interests.
Would you like to add anything?
I’d like to thank Ryan Hardy too, he wrote me words of inspiration not long ago and it was pretty cool. Andrew Lester has also been helping me lately, with strategies and that for both prone and dropknee.
Will you say what Hardy wrote in his letter to you?
Nah not really he got right into it but, he kind of gave me a slap over the face pretty much and gave me some really constructive criticism about everything and it was good. It was just a real good motivating thing and he’s just a f*@king legend.
Did you just need someone to tell you you’ve still got it?
Yeah kind of. Yeah just sometimes when you have a few knock downs, you start to believe them after a while. It’s good to have someone to tell you otherwise. Because if you feel like your surfing is still good, there’s a lot of luck involved too. As long as you’re still on your game, you can’t really pay attention too much to the results and that. I know it won’t last for… ahh doesn’t matter I’m just dribbling now.
