"The second one was a piece of shit..." says the mag!
Kelly Slater’s final day at the Billabong Tahiti Pro could not have been any better. He won the event, beating the world’s newly minted number one. He won the AI commitment award that has a light inside. He won 10s.
Except Surfing magazine’s very wonderful Michael Ciaramella hates one of those 10s! The second one! He writes:
The second wave was a good wave. That’s about it. Kelly took off deep, no-hand pumped, set his rail, and shot through it. A nail in the coffin, sure, but not a goddamn sledgehammer to Keanu’s head.
And ouch! Such a stinger! Such passionate defiance! Such a rock through heaven’s window!
Should we watch it again?
Does Kelly not come out with the spit? Is he not maxing out speed, power and flow? Would it not be a 10 any and every day of the week?
What the hell is your fucking problem Michael?
But do you agree with him? Was Kelly’s second wave “shit?”
Well that escalted quickly.
Thread delivers. MC sounds like a total ass clown by the way. Seemed super butt-hurt that his name got posted in a negative way on this site so he proceeded to do a little damage control only to make an even bigger ass out of himself, in my eyes at least. Nice blurry pic of yourself you douche
I reckon JJFs last wave against Julian was the most over scored of the contest. But I would say that…
shit, all this scoring theory and nonsense is going to work well at the olympics isn’t it.
it will be like this: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
fuck, look at gymnastics, nobody gets under a 9. look at boxing, no shortage of stupid scoring in sport. judges should be able to go back and pull a score down if they overcook it, cause there isn’t always enough room to underscore the next one or overscore their competitor and still get the result right.
Kelly’s win was manufactured for audience.
Did you even watch?
even when the waves suck, they adjust so two weak snaps get a 5.5 because it looks bad when people win heats with less than 10 points, unless its Sunset Beach
when the waves are like they were and your wave isn’t part of the daily highlights clip, it shouldn’t be better than an 8.5
this is the realest.
This was his 55th win. 5+5 = 10. To balance the universe he needs 56 wins because 5+6 =11 and he has 11 world titles. Therefore the cosmos has already preordained him to win pipe in December and achieve numerical balance. He will then proceed to eat some chia pods, do a few sun salutations and disappear into the wilderness to build a mud hut and forage for food while learning to talk to the animals. He will re-emerge in 2027 (because 2+2+7 = 11) looking younger and fitter, will swim to Hawaii and win the Eddie (swell will be 11 metres at 11 seconds) then during the presentation ceremony a beam of light will descend from on high, and the ghosts of Andy Irons and Eddie himself will appear, beckoning him to return to his natural home in the fifth dimension where all men have girls names and vice versa. There he will marry a small asian woman named Kenneth. As he ascends to glory, the ghost of David Bowie will appear, singing Starman. At that exact moment, a giant sinkhole will open up in the ground in Brazil, and Adriano de Coleman, Gaybrielle and Toled0.00 shall be consumed by fire as they descend to the seventh layer of hell for an eternity of pain, suffering and 12ft Chopes closeouts on the head. Kelly’s will shall be done. Amen.
Wrong. 11 isn’t symmetrical. 12 is symmetrical: 6 world titles in the 90s, 6 world titles since. To balance the universe he needs one more world title and two more wins. Then he can eat some chia pods, do a few sun salutations yada yada yada 12ft Chopes closeouts on the head. Lesbian beanpole
This needs to be made into an unauthorized biopic
Definitely one of BG’s top comments ever. Bravo.
I’ll go ahead and say it: I liked the second better than the first! Sure, the first was a perfectly read and executed foamball ride that only The Champ could have pulled off, but it lacked the… je nais se quois… energy? urgency? thrill? of the second… The impossible section, the confident pump to straight-as-an-arrow line, a perfect perpendicular to the cascading lip, hands outstretched towards the channel, completely disappearing before re-emerging miraculously with the spit from the bowliest of bowls??? I give it a 20!
How about this simple truth: trying to put numbers on a ridden wave will never work. Never has.
Once the first 10 was given they were fucked. Which is why it doesn’t work. The WSL loves to hype 10’s so they throw them around like candy. A true 10 should be a rare bird.
My main argument, and the one that most people are either ignorant to or they just don’t want to recognize because “ALL HAIL KELLY”, is that heats are judged in a vacuum of relativity. What I mean is, if the first wave of the heat is a 5, all other waves in the heat are scored around that number. If you have a wave that’s slightly better, its a 5.5, slightly worse, 4.5. In my mind it’s clear that Kelly’s first 10 was better than the second, meaning that the second can’t be a 10. Kelly even referenced this in his post-heat interview. If the wave order was reversed, I would have much less of a problem with the perfect heat.
But the logic of “Does Kelly not come out with the spit? Is he not maxing out speed, power and flow? Would it not be a 10 any and every day of the week?” is completely irrelevant.
Unless you tell me that the second wave was equal to the first, you have no legs to stand on.
Your completely irrelevant.
His completely irrelevant what?
Your completely irrelevant critic is day drinking again.
I found them both adorable!
10s are like magazines and writers, they were not all created to be equal
They definitely ought to be more parsimonious with the 9’s and 10’s. It’s frickin Teahupoo – it’s not like they don’t know what’s going to go down when it’s good. So why are they making themselves split hairs with decimal points? And having to mis-score later waves to “get it right”?
they blew their load on Keanu’s 8.33, as @docleelau mentioned. when you only leave another 1.67 between that and the best wave possible, you’ve already fucked yourself.
P.S. Did you enjoy my unnecessary and asymetrical rage?
This article was originally posted under Derek’s moniker, and I was genuinely surprised that he would attack me in such a sporadic Chas-like fashion. Now that I know it was you I feel much better about the whole ordeal.
PS where do you do things? I’ve lived in Cardiff for a year now and have had exactly 0 Chas Smith sightings. Every time I see a tall, sandy haired string bean my ears perk up, only to be bamboozled by yet another lesbian yoga instructor.
That’s me! The lesbian!
snort-laughing so hard over here
Lesbian yoga instructors have bigger arms, no?
that was fucken funny.
Your main argument undermines your point on kelly…. the second wave was clearly not as good as the first wave, but the scale tops out at 10. Both waves were easily 1.67 points better than Keanu’s 8.33, which the judges blew their load on way to early in the heat… Relative to keanu’s wave Kelly’s first ten was like a twelve
I see what you’re saying, but every score in a heat gives a new relative scale. While the first score is the original benchmark, each new score creates an additional point of reference. While Kelly’s second 10 is probably 1.67 better than Keanu’s 8.33, it still has to be gauged within the framework of the first ten. It’s not always a linear scale, is what I’m trying to say.
it SHOULD be linear, but yeah you are a right.
I also went back and re-watched them a few times. The second one isnt even close to the first 10
how do you presume to know so much about the minds of judges?
you’re just guessing. And one guess is as good as another.
I don’t presume to know what they’re thinking, I just know how they’re supposed to judge according to the rule book. They could very well think that the two waves were equivalent, making their perfect heat completely justified. But if they (like many of us) don’t see it that way, then the score is undeniably wrong.
forget about your suppositions, where is the relevant passage in the rule book?
please.
You caught me! I can’t locate such a passage. But I guess I’m basing my theory around what the commentators tell us, and my general knowledge of competitive surfing from a decade and a half of experience. Do you have a different opinion as to how they judge, if not in direct relation to other waves surfed in a specific heat?
Well I reckon the whole 0-10 scale is outmoded and is holding back competitive surfing. So there.
http://beachgrit.com/2016/0…
Look, you came up with an elegant theory to try and explain the unexplainable: the Vacuum of Relativity Theory. But you made it up.
Here’s another theory. The Post-Hoc Rationalization theory. It states judges have no clue why a number pops into their head after viewing a wave. It is an unexplainable, inexplicable phenomena of consciousness. The truest thing Richie Porta ever said was that Judges “felt” a ten. Therefore any attempt to rationalize that number is nothing but a post-hoc attempt to makes sense of nonsense.
then I guess I, and many people around me, didn’t “feel” that 10, and I built a logical argument to solidify that feeling
great. Seeing as you’re so good at it, could you construct a logical argument as to why Pro Surfing judges are the only human beings in the history of humanity who have never made a mistake, ever.
40 years of pro surfing and not one recorded, acknowledged mistake. That is quite a record.
I realize you’re not American, but have you not heard of Hillary Clinton
hahahaha!
…ah, but it is linear! Each score is relative to the entirety of the heat, therefore, as doc pointed out, both waves were easily more than 1.67 points better than Keanu’s, and therefore tens. “You’re always comparing it to the first score,” one judge, contained in the attached story, told me.
http://beachgrit.com/2014/0…
I’m not sure I buy that logic, especially with scores above 9. I feel as though there’s generally a sliding scale when you get to the tippy top of the scoring range, as to protect the sanctity of the 10. However that seems to have been neglected in this instance. Do you know any CT judges that we could contact to settle the score on this exact situation? We could have a 3-way dialogue, I’ll play the bad guy.
I’d read that.
Maybe ten-point rides should be abolished and we took a little skin from gymnastics? http://beachgrit.com/2016/0…
You’ll know you’ve made it when Chas writes “Ciaramella vs. Slater 10!”
Then you’ll have to get a comments pseudonym, or continue to pontificate under your real name like a certain diminutive world champ’s pesky brother.
Ha! the truest.
Because the scale tops out at 10 , it is irrelevant which 10 was better.
If the judges look at the second 10 on its own and deem it to be good enough for full marks then you cant score it down just because there was a wave ridden better, prior .
Michael, you obviously have never read braille in a tube. I would take the expert opinion of Ross Williams on board. Kelly was only reading a bit of stephen king in braille in the first tube, but he was reading the complete works of marcel proust in french braille in the second tube, pushing the difficulty level up to the required standard for a 10.
you are just mad that you are from jersey and its obviously the worst state in the union. but god dam if yall dont get icy cold drainers in the middle of winter