It ain't cheating, exactly. But it sucks…
It’s a funny thing when an obvious problem escapes notice…
It’s no secret that competitors can influence their heat draws by throwing Round Four. Fanning used it to his advantage during the 2013 Pipe Masters, tossing a shoulder -hop drop in at John John in the dying minutes of the heat, knocking himself from second to third, and changing his draw from Julian Wilson in Round Five and an on fire John John in the Quarters to CJ Hobgood in Round Five and Yadin Nicole in the Quarters.
Not an easy setup, but nowhere near as insurmountable. And it was good tactics. Fanning won his heats, the contest, and the title.
(Read Surfing magazine’s story here.)
Call it what you want, sandbagging, match fixing… it sucks. As spectators we want to see guys and gals surf their best, scuttling a heat to ease your path to victory easier is lame, nothing Spartan-like about it at all.
But it ain’t cheating, and that’s what’s important.
Sure, you could say that the use of tactics over ability is weak and boring and leads to people who don’t deserve to win hogging space in the winners’ circle, but that wouldn’t be fair. Professional surfing is a sport and a job and you can’t really blame an athlete for doing whatever it takes to win, especially when they are operating within the rules. Even more especially when the title is on the line.
Which is why Stephanie Gilmore’s plan to skip her Round Four heat to save energy and baby an injury exposes a huge loophole in the WSL rules that needs to be closed immediately.
I’m not trying to assign some nefarious motive to Gilmore’s actions. She was hurt and wanted time to recover, and the fact that she withdrew from the event entirely prior to Round Five goes to show she’s no malingerer. But the fact that the current WSL rules allow skipped heats can only lead to more competitors taking that path in the future.
Fortunately, it’s an easy fix.
Treat a missed heat like what it is: a forfeit. If an injury is truly severe enough to warrant a skipped heat it’s unwise, and unsafe, to allow a surfer to continue later in the event. Being given a short chance to rest up, only to exacerbate something that would have healed on its own, isn’t something either viewers or the WSL wants.
It is in the surfers’ interests as well. Events missed due to injury provide the surfer the minimum number of points, but absolutely zero prize money.
And I know some lower seeds could use that cash.
“people who don’t deserve to win” will never hog the winner’s circle because the quality of surfing is too high to win events by consistently throwing heats. Just because you go hard on every wave doesn’t mean you deserve to win a title.
In saying that, I think you at least need to paddle out and post two scores to progress into the next round.
This is a great strategy, unless it’s used by a Brazilian. Then it’s horse shit.
I did this once in a contest, I will clarify I was no surfing superstar before you conjure up images of Seaman Staines gracing the cover of Kiwi Surf in his youth but I could surf alright enough, anyway for some reason 2 people no showed our 4 man heat so it was just me and a surfer even kookier than myself ready to do battle, I looked at the heats and noted that a 2nd place would take me on an easier path so I paddled out took off went straight and paddled in, done, second place and a couple more no name surfers to meet in my next heat, the guy that beat me was stoked though not knowing that I had thrown him into a death match with guys probably sponsored by O and E and Hot Tuna.
You intentionally threw a man to the wolves of the Hot Tuna team?!? You smart and cowardly bastard!!!
I think Hot Tuna had the A team in NZ during the 80’s/90’s with a couple of Kuta Lines sponsorships around the traps to keep all of NZ’s best surfers in trackies and those Mexican hoodie things.
I vaguely remember their fluro yellow and purple ads with reo’s set against ugly brown water. I also distinctly remember everyone using a soldering iron to brand their woodwork projects with the Hot Tuna logo.
I got a mate with the Hot Tuna logo tattooed on his arm… not just the Fish but also Hot Tuna Australia. And no he isn’t from Australia.
There’s a couple of guys I know who have done that with the Oneil logo. Also, one well known SI surfer with the old Seventhwave taniwha logo on his shoulder.
I’ve also seen numerous Dragon (the sunglasses not the mythical creature) tattoos in NZ, I have also seen a Quiksilver logo and a few Rip Curl Search logos, regrets?
It’s a very New Zealand thing to do. It’s like the rest of the world are still frothing on appropriating Maori tattoos and Kiwis’ have just gone “Fuck it, lets take things next level.”
Aww shit the old woodwork soldering iron projects, the smell of burning pine, the shaky logo with corners just a little too burned, you know how hard it is to keep a steady arc when you are twelve years old, we also did metal work and made a stainless steel book mark with leather tassel with logo soldered into it, not too mention learning how to load the bobbin into a sewing machine to make a pencil case.
We made our own way-too-baggy boxers.
poor kid never stood a chance, who did you draw? a couple cats from the Mambo team perhaps?
I don’t recall Mambo being represented in Aotearoa at the time, I like to think I drew a couple of guys who worked at one of the local surf shops and were therefore sponsored by proxy, sponsorships were given out like nobodies business back in the day.
oh man i hate those guys, thinking they’re all fancy and shit
I always had delusions of being sponsored by Lifes A Beach. I can’t describe how excited I was when they made a comeback.
Oh shit you just reminded me I had a pair of Bad Boy Club trackies, so bad ass.
There’s an even easier fix. Shitcan the no-loser rounds. First order of business after the coup.
100%. Hallelujah. Amen.