The Tahiti contest? Yeah, rad! But, listen, three things ain't quite right…
Teahupo’o gave me an attack of dizziness. Heading into the final days of the waiting period I thought Kieren Perrow was boned. He’d passed off too many good days early on, only to have conditions shut him down time and again. Bad move, leaving it until the last two days, hoping for an epic swell. Except not.
Unfortunately, not all the decisions were good ones. Since I enjoy second guessing ZoSea/ASP policy as much as the next man, here’s a list of stuff I still want to bitch about.
The commercials: It’s time for ZoSea to hire some new ad sales dorks. Watching the same few commercials play on repeat over the course of an entire contest is obnoxious as hell. It also does a good job demonstrating how little commercial interest there is in the sport.
On the bright side, whichever company was advertising their girls line did a good job of moving a half step away from the sexism rampant in the industry. There were four waves ridden, compared to only two ass shots over the course of the ad. I’ll chalk that up as a step towards egalitarianism.
The commentators: I don’t know what’s going on here. Strider, Pottz, Williams and Occy do a pretty good job with the color, but Blakey, Turpel and the other guy seem like they’ve never taken a public speaking course in their lives. Real sports announcers draw from a wealth of knowledge to generate conversations during slow moments. Using inane banter to fill dead air is agonising. Spend your ample time between events filling manila folders with salient facts, pull them out during lulls. Talk about local culture, sponsor changes, equipment choices, the evolution of progression at the relevant spot, anything. Just don’t spend hours repeating that JJ surfs barrels good because he grew up at Pipe. We know that.
And, for Christ’s sake, please discuss scores. It’s hard to make an argument that results are legitimate when they’re handed down by anonymous dudes based on secret reasoning and never questioned by the guys in the booth. Can you imagine a football game where the refs are all watching from off stage and the commentators aren’t allowed to talk about bad calls? Of course not, that’d be retarded.
The scoring: Starting a heat between the two best barrel riders on Earth by giving one of them a 10? Who’s dumb-ass idea was that? Rather than seeing them trade off and battle for the win we instead got to witness JJ struggle to dig himself out of a hole. Giving a 10 means that it’s impossible for someone to get a better wave in the heat, how the fuck can that be an option ten seconds in? Moves like this, combined with the head judge nonsense, reek of collusion. However, I will admit that I enjoy screaming obscenities at a computer screen, so if that’s what you were going for, well, bravo!