He has the sharpest beak!
Earlier today, the just-turned 20-year-old Filipe Toledo won the Oakley Pro at Lower Trestles. He beat Jeremy Flores and no one was surprised, least of all Jeremy Flores.
“Under three feet and no one in the world can beat him,” Jeremy had told me the previous week.
At the time, I’d asked Jeremy, in a strictly hypothetical sense, that if he were to ever confront Filipe in a final – although what are the chances! – what would his strategy be? How would he stop himself from being castrated by Filipe’s sharp beak?
Jeremy was lost. “Pheeeeeew… I’d probably try… uh… maybe… um… work on my power. Yeah, I’d over surf with big carves and stuff like that. He’d be doing big airs and I don’t think anyone does airs like him in the small stuff. If I had a heat with him three-foot waves, I’d pray for him to fall. And, if he did, I’d try and push every turn as hard as I can.”
Let’s examine a typical Toledo ride from the Oakley Pro final, in the eight-point range. As his tail lifts and he climbs to his feet, Filipe begins to shake and quiver. Tears stream from his eyes. God is with him and no one else, at least not now!
His legs come to life and his arms thrash at the air like the wings of a wounded bird gasping its last. His father looks out to sea, facing the west, towards his son’s special fury. Floaters extend beyond the normal boundaries, a tail drops… again… twice the manoeuvre is repeated… one atrocity after another. Darting. Dashing.
Jeremy watches and weeps.
Most incredible, still, the wave, two feet at best, would be a six under anyone else’s feet. Faith will move mountains!
All who understood gazed at the final in terror. Can you imagine what Kelly Slater, for instance, must be thinking? It’s impossible for him, and anyone else for that matter (John John doesn’t have that kinda gas in small waves) to beat Filipe. What if Kelly isn’t in the game for world titles anymore? What if the usual dish of small waves on the WSL just serves the Greatest Ever one embarrassment after the next? What future is there left to ponder?
Who would’ve thought that a wholesome 20-year-old from Brazil, and not Gabriel, would come upon surfing like some great natural disaster? On surfboards that weren’t from Biolos or Merrick, Handley or JS?
But now let’s imagine a rude awakening, a plunge into reality, with everyone caught in the soup.
Fiji. Tahiti. Jeffrey’s Bay. They fire. And Filipe smashes it to pieces.
Our little friend will twist the entire tour around his finger! What then?
But things haven’t gone quite that far yet. Soon, but soon…
I think what the haters miss is that you can teach guys like Filipe to surf bigger waves as they mature, but you’ll NEVER teach guys to surf small waves like he does. Not Kolohe, not Nat, not Julian, and certainly not Mick or Joel or even Kelly. The future is bleak for the anti-brazo crowd.
Agreed, his speed generation in gutless waves looks like a video game. Game set and match if the tour had another run of average conditions.
The thing I don’t get is given his weakness in slabs and backside pits why he isn’t in Gnarloo, G-land or Deserts getting smashed (& learning) but competing in a QS event that will have no bearing on his title campaign?
he’s just turned 20 and winning CT and QS events like they’re nothing. He’ll do like Gabs did and just figure it out as it comes.