Surfing’s Big Wave Awards include Wipeout of the Year category

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The 2011 Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards will take place April 29 at the Grove Theater in Anaheim, with some of the top names in the surf industry gathering to honor male and female surfers and their greatest successes on huge waves worldwide during the last year.

Watching top surfers ride big waves perfectly is mesmerizing. And so is watching those not so successful in their execution.

One of the crowd-favorite award categories is not for those who pull off a perfect ride, but for those who don’t -- the Verizon Wireless Wipeout Award.

This year’s nominees for the worst wave-riding crash of the last 12 months are: Brazilian Thiago Candelot, meeting misfortune at Maui’s Jaws break; Australian Mark Mathews and Brazil’s Everaldo ‘Pato’ Teixeira, both unsuccessful at Tasmania’s Shipstern Bluff; Laurie Towner of Australia, feeling defeat at Cloudbreak, Fiji; and Australian Ben Wilkinson, learning firsthand how difficult Maverick’s, the infamous big-wave break off Half Moon Bay, can be.

-- Kelly Burgess
twitter.com/latimesoutposts

Video: Verizon Wireless Wipeout Award nominees. Credit: BillabongXXL.com via YouTube