World News for Students of English

12-09-2014 15:00

Sixteen of the most elite surfers have taken on “the most dangerous wave in the world” in Australia.

They went head-to-head at Sydney’s Botany Bay with waves that break onto its rocks.

“It’s a big wave surfing event but it’s not a big wave surfing event based on size, it’s based on the danger scale. Like this is a six-foot to eight-foot wave, but on the danger scale it’s off the Richter compared to like a 50 foot wave.”

The six to eight-foot waves over one of the world’s deadliest reefs make the event one of the most difficult. Organisers Red Bull Cape Fear crowned eight winners at the inaugural event.

“It’s basically bringing all the best big wave surfers in the world to this crazy spot here in Sydney and having them do battle like a boxing card style-format. The guys you want to see, you handpick them, you put them against each other and see who’s the best.”

While there were no monster waves on the day, there definitely wasn’t a shortage of barrels or wipeouts.

Eight head-to-head competitions saw Contest Director Mark Mathews beat his childhood hero Shane Dorian, despite having a back injury.

Difficult words: head-to-head (against one another), danger scale (how dangerous something is), Richter (a scale that measures how big earthquakes are; in this context he means that the event is extremely dangerous even if the waves are small), reef (a place where plants and land come up from the bottom of the ocean and change the water), inaugural (marking the beginning of an activity), spot (place), handpick (select carefully), shortage (not enough), barrel (hollow inner side of a wave), wipeout (fall from a surfboard).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com