A historical day at Maui's most famous wave!
And did you watch the World Surf League big wave event yesterday? And did you witness the wrath of God’s ocean? Amazing! Beautiful! Much ink deserves to be spilled over Billy Kemper’s second in a row win. The kind-hearted man deserves to be hoisted on shoulders and carried around the world, feet never touching the ground!
But the most inspiring portion was the women’s heat. Days after Hillary Clinton defeat threw the world into chaos, Paige Alms, Bianca Valenti, Felicity Palmateer, etc. etc. rose to meet the challenge.
Magnificent!
The Associated Press reports:
Competitor Bianca Valenti, who has pushed for women to be included in professional big-wave surf contests, called the day a big step forward for women in the sport.
“It’s the least we can do to speak to the election the other day,” Valenti told The Associated Press in a phone interview before the competition, referring to Hillary Clinton’s defeat by President-elect Donald Trump.
“I watched Hillary’s concession speech and what she was saying – how important it was for women to really stand up now more than ever to break the glass ceiling – and that really resonated a lot,” Valenti added.
More on the event later, but for now I say bravo. Bravo to all!
I went back and looked at her scores in rd 1, .93, and .43; I don’t even know what that means. My point is that it’s pretty amazing to see these tiny little persons out there charging. You and I, we have a leg up; I’m 5′ 10″, 185 lbs, been training my whole life; Laura Enever? What is she like 100lbs or something? I agree with you to a certain extent but Valenti’s trash talking helped to get the girls in at Jaws; so, i say good on her.
Felicity and Laura are babes. I want them to hold me like a baby.
I’m not sure you noticed but it was windy, tricky, huge jaws . . . I’m sure you would have dominated.
Congrats to my guy Will.
Ummm….Chas…you are aware that half of the women’s finalists were in the ER, right? Kinda hard to call that a successful event.
I’d definitely call it a success; they were charging in difficult, windy, huge Peahi; it was inspiring.
So what happens now at Mavs? You can’t tell me that Pete Mel puts the women out there in the same monster conditions as the men. If he lost three surfers at Jaws on a big-ish day then he could get them all hurt there.
If it’s monster mavs and the girls want to paddle out, I’ll make sure they check with you first before they go. Dude, these aren’t normal people; they surf big waves. I’m sure they know the risks, as did Mark Foo and Sion. One more thing, Peter Mel didn’t hurt them; Jaws did, and I’m sure they’ll be back out there, not sitting on the sidelines, worrying about getting hurt.
I can almost guarantee you that Mel will think twice before putting the women out there at Mavs after what happened at Jaws. I only heard part of the conversation on the Haleiwa webcast yesterday but it sounded like he had some second thoughts about running the women. I could definitely be wrong and have heard incorrectly but that’s what I got from it.
Reigning in my devils advocate: yes, safety is a concern, and the women are smaller/lighter than the men; so, they are more vulnerable, i.e., the wind really took them for a loop. For me – coming from big island – where we rejoice in semi-insane charging – I was in awe watching the women charge. It was inspiring. But yes, safety is a concern. There is a point where the WSL will say no, even if the girls want to paddle out. But, I think it’s awesome that there are enough girls that are willing and want to surf those kind of waves.
It’s absolutely great that the women want to surf and that they want to be out there. Paige certainly belongs in that lineup, right? But there is also a reason why the women’s tour doesn’t go to Chopes or Pipe…right now they can’t surf the same conditions as the men. They go to Fiji because Restaurants is an option if Cloudbreak gets too big. But you can’t call yesterday’s event successful when the conditions caused half of the finalists to get hurt.
Do the women need Pete Mel to take care of them?
Uh…he’s The Commish…he gets to decide if the comp runs so without his greenlight they don’t get to surf.
half weren’t. Pow.
Besides, none died. Can’t say that about Mark Foo or Sion or Chesser now can you? Why do they ever let the men out if they keep dying?
That Super Bowl was great except for the fact that they ended up playing 5 on 5 with the ankle taping guy at QB because everyone got hurt due to poor/unsafe field conditions.
Answer up – it’s men who keep dying. Why? And why on earth do they let them surf knowing that one will die again – probably soon? You don’t seem to have a problem with men letting men die – what is it about women that leads you to believe they need a man to protect them from themselves?
The men aren’t dying in comps and an elite, big wave surfer hasn’t died in several years thanks to the significant advances in water safety. But men complain about conditions being unsafe all the time…didn’t Sunny question the decision to run the Pipe trials last year? Heres the bottom line in a gender neutral way…the conditions that the competitors surfed in were too challenging/unsafe and beyond their ability. This caused half the field to drop out because of injury. That could have applied to men at Pipe or it could have applied to the women at Restaurants.