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Competitors describe him as the 'Bulldozer' and a 'Brick Shithouse'

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 17 March, 2010 : - - As the WQS revs up at Margaret River, we look at Michel Bourez’s progress since his famous victory at the WQS’s Hawaiian Reef Pro, a victory that instantly made the Tahitian one of surfing’s biggest rising stars.

Born and raised in Tahiti, Michel Bourez also happens to be France’s number one surfer. But he’s been in demand ever since he became the first Tahitian (or European depending on your point of view) to beat the Hawaiians on their own turf with victory in the 2008 Reef Hawaiian Pro. It’s a six-star event on the WQS series and as such the win made Bourez eligible for the elite tour.

In 2009, the Spartan finished the second-highest rookie on the tour and this year he takes his place among the 44 best surfers in the world in the ASP world tour. His aim is to break into the top five in the next five years, and by the time he’s 29, he expects to be champion.

“My goal for 2010 is to break into the top 16, he says. “I’ve learnt from the mistakes I made last year and I think I’m capable of having a good season.”

You wouldn’t want to stand in his way. When other surfers talk about him, they tend to use words like “bulldozer” and “brick shithouse”. He’s the same height as Kelly Slater and Taj Burrow, Mick Fanning has a couple of centimetres on him, but he carries an extra three to four kilos in sheer muscle.

Bourez himself says his biggest asset is his raw power, but he is also supremely agile and pulls off the trickiest moves with fluidity and dynamism.

And the bad news for his competitors is he’s spent the off-season practising. “I’ve been training for the last two months,” he says. “I flew to Austria in January for a week of physical and mental training and then I went to Australia for Red Bull Project Air, to work on my aerials at a camp with Mick Fanning, Jordy Smith, Tim Boal and Julian Wilson.

“That gave me the chance to see how I measured up against the best in the world. Now I am physically and mentally ready for whatever the season can throw at me.” The Tahitian’s next opportunity to show off the battery of new skills and tricks at his disposal comes at the end of this month at the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach on Australia’s Gold Coast.

www.redbullsurfing.com

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