Parkinson claims Triple Crown consolation prize 

Source: Kelly Slater

Joel Parkinson says winning surfing's prestigious Triple Crown in Hawaii is his consolation prize for missing out on the world title.

The Queenslander was confirmed as points winner of the Triple Crown on Wednesday (NZT), while West Australian Taj Burrow beat America's nine-time world champion Kelly Slater in the final of the season-ending Billabong Pipe Masters.

World tour runner-up Parkinson receives a prize of $US50,000 ($NZ69,650) for his performance over the three Hawaiian events.

Recognised as surfing's greatest prize outside of the ASP world title, the 28-year-old took a commanding lead into the final event and was eliminated in the third round.

Parkinson claimed the trophy for the second consecutive year when American CJ Hobgood went down to countryman Dane Reynolds in Wednesday morning's quarter-finals.

Parkinson lost the world title race to close friend and fellow Gold Coaster Mick Fanning earlier this week.

"This is my consolation prize," Parkinson said on Wednesday.

"To me, the Triple Crown is the next best thing to the world title.

"Last year I wanted to win the Triple Crown and this year I wanted to win the ASP world title, but I won the Triple Crown and I'm over the moon with what happened this year.

"I should be proud of everything I've done and I can't wait for next year and I'll be back strong for another Triple Crown and all that."

Burrow claimed first prize of $US50,000 ($NZ69,650) in the season-ending event, outpointing 37-year-old Slater in clean 1.5-metre waves at the Banzai Pipeline.

An elated Burrow rated the victory the best of his career after beating Slater 12.83 to 7.10 in the 35-minute final.

"For me, winning this contest is the next best thing to winning a world title," Burrow told aspworldtour.com.

"This is the one and only event that everyone would probably pick to win and I can't believe I'm standing here right now.

"It's an amazing feeling. There are so many tough guys that you go up against in this event that I thought it was out of my reach."

Slater, who is undecided on competing full-time in 2010, said the final had the worst conditions of the contest.

"I had already had a couple of heats with barrels and then all of a sudden it's completely different conditions," he said.