And the craziness begins.

The world’s largest professional surfing competition - the Honda U.S. Open of Surfing presented by O’Neill - kicked off this morning at the Huntington Beach Pier. 

Surfing reporter Shawn Price at 3:15 p.m. today gave us breaking news: the U.S. Open of Surfing will be missing its king this year.

Hurley confirmed that three-time and defending open champ Rob Machado (Cardiff) will not surf in this year’s event due to a broken ankle. He is scheduled for testing on Monday.

The freak injury was suffered when Machado landed badly doing a floater at the break in front of his home.

Check out this article by Price, which takes a look at how the U.S. is expected to perform against international competition.

A few days ago, I caught up with announcer “Rockin’ Fig,” who has been entertaining the hundreds of thousands who show up to watch for about 15 years.

“I get pumped up for it every year,” he said. ”There’s nothing like doing a beach interview, running right up to (winners), asking them how the heat was, throwing it out to the crowd, and having them cheer.”

As exciting as it can be, it’s a tough job because the contest lasts so long.

“There’s a lot of grueling days. You want to do a good job, but you have to pace yourself. You can have no voice at the end,” he said.

About 500 top-notch athletes from around the world show up to battle it out during the next 10 days.

The rest of the activities on the sand with the Bank of the West Beach games kick off next Thursday.  

There’s four divisions for surfing, with a total $175,000 prize purse. 

Here’s a list of some of the top competitors:

Men
Cory Lopez (Florida): Former event champion and Team O’Neill rider
Bruce Irons (Hawaii): Former Pipeline Masters champion and inductee into 2007 Surfers’ Hall of Fame
Sunny Garcia (Hawaii): Former world champion; recently served prison term for federal income tax evasion
C.J. Hobgood (Florida): Former world champion and twin brother of Damien (out due to injury)
Dane Reynolds (Ventura): Highest rated Californian on WQS at number nine

Women
Sofia Mulanovich (PERU): Reigning event and former world champion. Currently rated number three in the world. Inductee into 2007 Surfers’ Hall of Fame
Chelsea Hedges (AUS): Former USO Champion currently rated number one in the world
Stephanie Gilmore (AUS): Young Aussie phenom currently rated number two in the world
Erica Hosseini (Newport Beach): Top rated American woman on WQS
Keala Kennelly (Hawaii): Former World Tour standout; currently stars in John from Cincinnati

For full coverage through the next 10 days, including a beach blog, news stories, videos and photos, go to ocregister.com/beaches.

- Laylan

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