Halfway through the 2009 contest year, Joel Parkinson had his first world title in the bag.He’d finished runner-up twice before, but decided he was done with that, and had ratcheted things up with a pre-season training regimen that would make Brock Lesner cry. Before the first comp. of the season every surf magazine and blogger was claiming 2009 to be his, and with the first five comps down he’d proven them all right. he was so far ahead in the ASP ratings, one media outlet said him not winning the world title would constitute one of the all time inexplicable chokes. At this point, Parko had won three of five events and looked unstoppable. The second half of the year, however, went sideways. And as it turns out, it was explicate. While free surfing in Bali, Parko tweaked his ankle on an air, and though he indicated it wasn’t that bad, his results afterward suggested different. After the ankle injury, he logged three straight 17ths. Parko fans were in disbelief, but the good side was that the world title race got a whole lot more interesting. As Parko’s campaign went cold, good mate and fellow coolie kid Mick Fanning dug into a  searing hot streak, winning three of four contest’s in the second half of the season, and had wrestled the lead away from Joel going into the pipe masters. Parko kept things competitive with a third in Portugal, and suddenly the surf world had a world title showdown of epic proportions on it’s hands. Parko got beat out at the pipe masters by a wildcard surfer and dangerous pipe specialist Gavin Gillette, Fanning would become the world champ for the second year in a row.