Do you believe the world is divided between the brutally
oppressed and the privileged, the division mostly based
upon colour lines? Oh, I don’t. But I’m white (actually the
nuttiest brown) and perhaps blind to the mechanisations of
prejudice.
Jadson Andre, a Brazilian who is five-feet-seven and ten stone
(a little man), is the world number twenty five and represents, if
you’re into that sorta thing, the struggle of the poor, of the
coloured. This ain’t a kid who grew up in the privileged surf
ghettos of southern California or south-west France or
Australia.
But he has form!
Do you remember in 2010 when he famously beat that year’s world
champion Kelly Slater in Brazil to win the Billabong Pro? Relive
that here.
Earlier today, the WSL published an interview with Andre, who
faces relegation from the WCT tour, unless he can swoop into a
semi-final at Pipe.
Andre is no natural phenomenon but his story is
startling and honest.
On losing to Julian Wilson, round three,
Portugal: When I heard he got the score he needed I
started crying. I didn’t know what to do. I went to the judge’s
tower. I wanted to ask them. But as soon as I went to them I
couldn’t even talk. I was just crying. I just wanted to ask them
why…but I just left. After that I took a shower and called my
girlfriend. When I woke up the next morning and I was okay. I don’t
take things too personal. For some reason, I had to lose that
heat.
How many hours did you cry for: I was so
upset, I cried for like four hours straight. But I think it was
good because after that everything went away. I’m sad, but I’m okay
with myself.
On poverty: My parents had me when they
were really young, so they didn’t have any money. I really wanted a
football but they didn’t have enough to get me one. When my Dad got
a job he saved enough to buy me a football. It ended up getting a
hole in it and it deflated. My mom said that my dad came home
crying because he didn’t have enough to buy another one. She said
that was one of the saddest days for them, when they were younger.
But now I surf and I have given them a better life and I can buy
lots of footballs, so I should not be sad for anything.
I really take that as – whatever happens, I’m going to be fine.
The ball was $2 and they weren’t able to buy it. This is all a
blessing. I’m not going to complain about anything. This is the
journey. I love what I do and I love this tour. I’m really grateful
for what surfing has done for my family and me.
On not-getting the injury wildcard (presuming they go to
Bede Durbidge and Owen Wright): Everyone on Tour
knows about my injuries. But there’s no more room for injury
replacements next year. If I don’t qualify, I’ll try somehow to be
a replacement or something like that, but I’m not going to take
someone else’s spot if they are ready. That’s their spot. It
wouldn’t be fair if I took their spot, I wouldn’t be happy with
myself. I wouldn’t surf happy. I would be shy, almost, if I wasn’t
supposed to be there.
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Surfing rated world’s 8th raddest
sport!
By Rory Parker
Beaten by rollerblading (of course!) but trumps
X-treme Unicycles and snakeboarding!
It’s a banner day in the BeachGrit
world. After months of toil in my basement laboratory I’m
finally ready to unveil a groundbreaking discovery in the world of
action sports marketing.
Drawing upon the expertise of cutting edge mathemagicians,
statisticians, instagram celebrities, and cultural czars I created
a proprietary algorithm that assigns values to each sport’s
respective enjoyability, culture, skill, danger, and spectator
appeal, then uses science stuff to calculate a score I’ve decided
to label “RadFactor™.”
Unfortunately, it keeps returning grizzle bear rodeo in
the top spot. Which would be rad, if it actually existed.
Because it does not I’ve decided to scrap the entire project and
make up a list off the top of my head.
Behold my rankings, from most rad to depressingly lame. The
results may shock you!
Skateboarding: No debate here. Skating’s
been the best since the moment it shed itself of its aquatic
forefathers and took to the streets.
Squirrel suit flying (or whatever it’s
called): Coolest way to commit suicide ever
invented.
Mountain bikes: Expensive as fuck, but there’s
no radder way to obliterate both your collarbones than getting
pitched over the handlebars after an ill considered cliff jump.
Bodyboarding: What surfing could be, if you
took away the pretension and money.
BMX: Basically skateboarding where the ground
is too fucked to roll.
Whitewater kayaking: I don’t know why this is
here.
Rollerblading: The stand-up paddlers of the
skateboard world.
Surfing: I’m, honestly, surprised it ranked
this high.
Skim boarding: Skateboarding for people who
want to surf but don’t know how to swim.
X-treme Unicycles: Mountain bikes for guys who
hate their dicks.
Skiing: Why is this ranked higher than
snowboarding? Because fuck snowboards.
Freestyle motocross: Wealthy desert trash with
tattoos and meth habits.
Pogo-sticking: The Magic cards of X-treme
sports.
Snakeboarding: Snowboarding for kids who can’t
afford snowboarding.
Parkour: Only made the list because of the near
infinite number of videos of stupid kids wrecking themselves.
Snowboarding: The golf of boardsports. Rich
white kids whose parents are willing to piss away ridiculous
amounts of money on lift tickets and dork-ass looking gear.
Wake surfing: Like real surfing, only the wave
sucks and it requires a $60K boat that costs a million dollars an
hour to run.
Wake boarding: Strapped in river garbage
knee explosions.
Urban paddle boarding: Shameful.
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Why the Olympics Won’t Use Wave Pools!
By Jake M Tellkamp
And maybe Hossegor and Trestles for the 2024
games?
I’m not here to throw shade on Kelly Slater or his
miracle of technology. I want to explain the
reasoning behind the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and
Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee’s decision to hold surfing in the
ocean.
The International Surfing Association (ISA) proposed Olympic
Surfing to be held in a wave pool or at Shidadhida Beach. They
didn’t specify if the pool was to be Kelly Slater Wave Co, Wavegarden or another company’s
design.
Both committees watched the jaw dropping videos of Surf Ranch,
visited the Japanese beachbreak in winter, and went with the
latter.
Surprised?
The committee that spends billions erecting stadiums around the
world wouldn’t budge throw a little green at a pool? Surprised me
too.
Surfing Magazine went as far as to write a
opinion piece entitled “Olympics Surfing Should Be In Wave Pools”.
Much of it based on a popular assumption that surfing didn’t
qualify as an Olympic sport because the ocean is an uneven playing
field, and therefore you can’t crown “the best surfer in the world”
after one surf contest, even it is in pumping waves.
While I agree with that statement, judging or crowning the
world’s best surfer was never a concern to the IOC according to ISA
President, Fernando Aguerre.
“It had nothing to do with judging, but rather the ability for
there to be waves in future host cities. The IOC decision was to
approve surfing for 2020. For 2024, Los Angeles and Paris have
expressed their interest to have surfing included. No talks between
those cities has been about man-made or natural waves”.
(Lower Trestles and Hossegor, although not in the city of LA or
Paris, are proposed sites for Olympic Surfing in 2024.)
It all seemed to coincide perfectly. Kelly Slater releases the
video of the artificial wave on December 5th, 2015. Same year the
the ISA grows to having 100 Surfing Nations with Iran’s
inclusion. I thought both were equally important for the successful
IOC bid in Rio de Janeiro on August 5th,2016.
So why did the IOC decide to go with Shidashida over Slater’s
synthetic perfection?
At the heart of it, wave pools aren’t a proven return of
investment.
“More than anything”, says Fernando Aguerre , “it must have a
proven business sustainability model”.
The Surf Ranch is mouth-watering and the interest surrounding
the technology is very real, but Kelly Slater Wave Co and the World
Surf League (WSL) haven’t built one for commercial use
yet.
The likelihood of Kelly Slater Wave Co/WSL sanctioned events at
a casino or resort are probable. Only a matter of time until an
investor makes it happen. Fingers crossed it won’t be Trump but
until the kinks are worked out, the IOC can’t justify building one.
Kelly’s wave pool is like the 11-time world Champion, without
equal. But much of the financial side of his pool is unknown.
Kelly Slater hasn’t given an outright price for an elite-level
wave pool. In an article with BloomBerg, Kelly
Slater says that his prototype could be scaled to fit any body of
water, for a price.
“The cost of a system will depend on many variables, most
obviously the size of the pool and the foil. “If you said
$2 million you wouldn’t be wrong, and if you said $20 million
you wouldn’t be wrong either,” he says. “It’s like a buffet.”
Let’s imagine the IOC was drop 20 million
dollarsforthe barrel buffet. The Surf
Ranch sits on 20 acres of dust in Lemoore, California. The cost to
clear that much land in Tokyo might be more than the pool and
technology itself.
But unlike a buffet, Kelly’s pool isn’t “all you can surf for
$14.99”. We don’t know a price per wave estimate or even if
Kelly’s pool is a 2 million or a 20 million dollar version. We do
know that it’s solar powered which aligns with the Olympics stance
on sustainability.
Let’s imagine the IOC was drop 20 million dollars
for the barrel buffet. The Surf Ranch sits on 20
acres of dust in Lemoore, California. The cost to clear that much
land in Tokyo might be more than the pool and technology itself.
But costs aren’t the only concern.
In the videos of Surf Ranch, the wave is a dream, not a drop of
water out of place. But we don’t know what it would be like to run
a live event in one. For instance, after each wave, the foil needs
to be reset. How long does that take? How long does it take for the
turbulence in the pool to settle after each wave?
Let’s say, to make the wave all perfect and glassy like we see
on the videos, that there is one wave every ten minutes. Would a
heat consist of two waves apiece and last 40 minutes? Downtime
between waves is bad enough in the WSL viewing experience. Imagine
waiting for the bubbles to go flat in a pool.
And we’ve only seen Kelly’s pool offered as a right. Would we
expect the IOC to award backside and frontside gold medalist
or to build two pools adjacently?
Tokyo 2020 runs from August 7th to the 23rd. Surfing will have
the duration of the games as a waiting period for swell. With only
40 allocated competitors split evenly amongst the sexes, Olympic
Surfing will take only two days to complete.
The odds of getting two fun days at Shidashida during early
typhoon season are good, (it was pumping this year) and if need be,
the event could go mobile. There are plenty of options close by on
the Chiba peninsula. Shidashida is renowned however, for being
Japan’s most dependable beachbreak.
Located one hour from Tokyo by car or train, Shidshida has held
World Qualifying Series contests and Pro Junior events since the
1990s. A wide beach, the location is ideal to handle crowds of
visitors.
Fortunately, for those competing and spectating, the waves for
the Olympics could be fun. Check out this WSL clip of a Qualifying
Series event at Shidashida during a typhoon swell. Conditions look
better than Huntington Beach did for the US Open of Surfing.
Surfing being voted into Tokyo 2020 Games was a monumental
shift, but it doesn’t secure a permanent slot to future
games. Kelly’s wave pool is our ticket to landlocked
countries and that’s exactly where the IOC should build them.
Introduce surfing to a place where it wouldn’t be possible.
Building a pool when the coast is an option, sets a precedence for
host nations to uphold. Olympic Surfing might be considered too
costly to run if that’s the case. The IOC has to be certain that
what they build will benefit the host nation’s economy and Japan’s
history tells them that the wave pool craze doesn’t last.
Until Slater showed off the Surf Ranch, the wave at Ocean Dome,
part of the Seagaia Resort, was the internet’s most sensational
wave pool. This video of Owen Wright and Julian Wilson, was the
only glimpse we saw of Ocean Dome’s potential, but nine years later
it never stops looking like a good time.
But what the video doesn’t show is that Ocean Dome was expensive
to operate and close to a good surf spot. Both were factors
for the pool going flat forever in 2007 due to bankruptcy.
Slater’s wave is better, but without proof of its commercial
success, it’s too big of a financial risk to the Japanese economy,
and that’s the ultimate decision maker when it comes to Olympic
politics.
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Spark one: Best ever prize for surf
champ!
By Chas Smith
A gift that kept giving!
It says on the World Surf League’s website that
John John Florence has won $389,500.00 so far on his championship
run. And what do you think has he has purchased? Maybe a single
family home in Tulare, California just a short drive away from
Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch? Maybe a bottle of Chateau Margaux from
Thomas Jefferson’s personal stash?
Do you think he wishes he won packs of cigarettes instead of
money? That is what Australia’s Daily Telegraph reveals
that the country’s first women’s champ won! Packs of Craven A’s!
The champ, Phyllis O’Donnell is 79 now but not bitter about her
unhealthy gift.
“I used to smoke so I didn’t mind so much. But I gave that up 30
years ago now…” she tells the paper.
Do you think the World Surf League will draw inspiration from
the past and award future champs cartons of Camel Blues once
Samsung officially implodes and the Ziffs get bored?
Or do you think they will award Camel Crushes instead?
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Holy shit: Surfers are the worst!
By Hondo
A wonderful snowboarder tells us how we look!
(This story first appeared on LodgeGrit. Are you
like Matt Biolos? Do you like snowboarding better than surfing?
Then LodgeGrit
is the place for you too! It’s also anti-depressive!)
People talk shit on snowboarding. It’s an
unfortunate truth, but it is the truth. But why? Sure we wear silly
outfits when we snowboard but, like, it’s to keep us warm and dry
(for the most part, some though are just bad and deserved to get
made fun of…) and sure we are attached to the board, but you know
what, who cares? It’s the best.
One thing though is that if you work in snowboarding, you
probably live in SoCal. And if you live in SoCal, you probably have
to deal with surfers. Now snowboarding might get made fun of, but
holy shit are surfers the worst.
And here’s why:
Surfers are a bunch of Christopher
Columbuses!
The bastards think they’re the shit because they’re the
“original” board sport*… Well you know what bleach blond bro from
San Clemente?
You didn’t invent shit! You’re just a cultural appropriator!
We as snowboarders know that we didn’t invent shit. We’re just
doing our thing and love it. And if you’re down you’re down.
*If you’re Hawaiian you get a pass on this one…
Surfers just wear neoprene or shorts. Running around the
beach with your bros in a skin-tight suit!
Sick lol. Sure we may not wear the coolest outfits when we are
snowboarding but at least we can wear it to the store to buy some
beers when we are done.
Surfers are fucking assholes!
Have you ever met a group of surfers? Well, prepared to get
vibed out harder than you have ever been vibed in your
life. Since we, as snowboarders, have been getting ragged on
for years we are a pretty nice bunch. Granted, if you’re a kook you
will get vibed out. But, like, it’s easy, just don’t be a kook.
They think they can do whatever they want cause they’re
surfers!
“Oooooooo I surf and know a lot about surfing so let me start a
snowboard
site cause if I know about surfing I must know about
snowboarding oooooooooooooo…”
They’re all so tan and buff and get chicks!
Ok I guess that part is pretty cool, but seriously fuck
them.