Mike Parsons (surfer)

Mike Parsons (born March 13, 1965 in California) is a surfer sponsored by the Billabong company who famously successfully surfed a 66-foot wave at Cortes Bank, CA in 2001, for which he was awarded $66,000, the highest prize ever awarded in the history of professional surfing. This money was awarded by the Billabong XXL competition which has run since 2001 paying tribute to the biggest waves ridden each year. He is actually more famous for riding a 64-foot wave during competition at the Jaws break on the north shore of Maui. It was filmed by helicopter and used as the opening scene of the 2003 film Billabong Odyssey.^[1] A usually-uncredited clip of this sequence has gone on to become a viral video, attributed to a number of different surfers, locations, and in many cases, a Tsunami. Parsons recently broke his record on January 5, 2008, at Cortes Bank, when he was photographed surfing a wave that the Billabong XXL judged to be 70+ feet, which should put him in the Guinness Book of World Records, officially, for biggest wave ever surfed. Unofficially the biggest wave ever surfed remains Ken Bradshaw's wave at Outside Log Cabins, Oahu on January 28, 1998, at about 80 feet.

He was inducted into the Surfer's Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach, California in 2008.^[2]

References

1. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsHzU0ynRZk&NR=1 retrieved 2011-06-24
2. ^ Connelly, Laylan (2008-07-26). "Influential surfers get due at Hall of Fame". The Orange County Register: pp. Local 2. 

External links

• Video of the wave "Jaws" at Maui (Hawaï), for the World Cup Champion of Tow In

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Name	Parsons, Mike
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Date of birth	March 13, 1965
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