Billabong XXL Big Wave Awards 2011 Nominees

BILLABONG XXL BIG WAVE EVENT HONORS GREATEST RIDES OF YEAR AT FRIDAY NIGHT'S AWARD PARTY IN ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA;

ELEVENTH ANNUAL CEREMONY FEATURES GIANT SURF, $130,000 IN PRIZES AND A TELEVISION SHOW FROM FUEL

NEWPORT BEACH, CA -- (April 27, 2011) -- In just 24 hours over 2,200 surf industry VIPs will begin arriving for Friday night's Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards. It's an Oscars-style ceremony at the Grove Theater in Anaheim, California paying tribute to the greatest big wave accomplishments during the past year. The invitation-only event brings the elite of the surfing world to a red carpet gala with a star-studded array of nominees and presenters.

With entries from far flung places as Tasmania, Ireland, and Fiji this year's crop of nominees has some of the biggest tubes and worst wipeouts of recent memory. Fuel TV will broadcast the event on Sunday at 9PM Eastern Time and 6PM Pacific Time as a two-day tape delay.

Tuesday night the XXL judging panel gathered at the Billabong Headquarters in Irvine to make the final selection of the winners in each category. XXL mastermind Bill Sharp, headed up a panel of highly respected analysts from a cross section of surf magazines and perennial experts of Big Wave performance surfing. The esteemed judging panel scrutinized hours of footage and dozens of photographs to measure the maximum face heights of the year for the Monster Paddle and XXL Biggest Wave Award.

The other subjective categories -- including the $50,000 Ride of the Year -- were voted on by the 400-plus members of the "big wave academy" made up of all the surfers and photographers to have competed in the event along with select journalists who cover the sport.

Additional categories include the Monster Tube and Surfline Overall Performance Awards. The top female surfers of the year will contend for the Billabong Girls Performance crown and the greatest disasters will be celebrated with the crowd-pleasing Verizon Wipeout of the Year Award.

A slow start to the big wave riding season eventually gained a healthy head of steam, and once again huge waves and amazing rides were captured in stills and video around the world, often at new spots by upcoming surfers. When distilled down to the top five nominees in each of the XXL's seven divisions, nearly every category is filled with all-time moments, truly worthy of the being named an XXL champion and a share of the $130,000 in prize money at stake.

The Billabong XXL Big Wave Awards are fueled by Monster Energy. Verizon is the official communications provider and Toyota is the official vehicle of the event. Surfline.com is the exclusive surf forecast of the XXL. The event is sponsored by Surfing Magazine, Air Tahiti Nui and Contour.