Intro:

Australia's Taj Burrows won his second event of the season by defeating his compatriot Matt Wilkinson to be crowned the O'Neill Coldwater Classic champion on US Presidential election day in California.

Script:

While Barack Obama was riding a political wave to four more years in the Whitehouse, Matt Wilkinson and Taj Burrows were riding a moe literal one in the election hotspot of California.

Neither of the O'Neill Coldwater Classic finalists could vote in the presidential election though.

The All Australian showdown was also a tight race.

Burrows strugled to find a winning wave and looked unlikely to seal victory.

Wilkinson had all the momentum and was on course for a landslide win.

But then, he lost his balance at the final moment to hand his compatriot the trophy by a mere four tenths of a point.

SOUNDBITE (English) Taj Burrows, O'Neill Coldwater Classic winner
"It feels incredible, I really wanted to win another event this year especially being out of the race for the title which was pretty depressing, so it feels incredible and to get two wins in the year, I have never done that, oh no done it once but it feels really good and that is hard."

As the president sealed his second term, Wilkinson celebrated his second victory of the 2012 World Championship - which now moves on to the final stop of the tour in President Obama's birthplace - Hawaii.