Just eight riders remain in contention for event number two on the International BodyBoard World Tour, The Box Pro, with quarter-final placings being decided today in heaving four-to-six feet (two-metre) waves.  Local Ryan Hardy (Margaret River, WA), reigning Men’s IBA World Tour champion Amaury Lavernhe (REU) and multiple Men’s IBA World Tour champion, Guilherme Tamega (BRA) were among the stand-outs on a day that saw blood lost to the reef and at least one board broken in two. Former two-time IBA world champion Damien King (Port Macquarie, NSW, AUS) received medical attention for gashes to his face after being driven head-first into the reef just moments into his heat versus Mark McCarthy (ZAF), Dave Winchester (AUS) and Joe Clarke (AUS). The 32 year-old was desperately chasing a win to solidify a Round 4 berth and gave it everything he had when the rogue wave appeared. “It (the wave) came through in the first five or 10 seconds of the heat and I could see it was hitting wide, but I thought it could be a good one so I thought ‘I’ll go for it’,” explained King. “I backdoored it and I hit my face on the bottom faster than you can blink. I just got smashed, I hit real hard. I’m just lucky I didn’t hit my teeth. I knew I needed to win that heat to stay in the comp so I just kept my focus and stayed out there. You can’t get rattled when that sort of stuff happens, you need to expect it somewhere like the Box. Unfortunately things didn’t go my way today.” South African, Jared Houston (ZAF), found himself in a unique situation; the 21 year-old had his board split apart after an aerial attempt gone awry. Houston punched a huge air-forward off a wedging Box end-section and came down hard over the front of his board. It caved in beneath him, buckling under the pressure, and folded straight down the middle. “I saw that section and just went for it,” he explained. “I came down so hard my arms hit under water, I was still holding onto my board so I knew strai...