Do you think John John is going to win multiple titles? Think again!
Do you remember the Brazilian Storm? But do you really? Recall that the World Surf League’s championship trophy was supposed to be handed from one Brazilian hand to another to another for maybe decades? Or even the rest of all time? Yeah?
Of course you don’t!
The Brazilian Storm turned out to be a brief sprinkle followed by a cloudless Hawaiian sky.
But a new low pressure system is developing just off the horizon. This one is not spinning in South America though but Europe instead!
A European Storm! Or, as they say in European, a “Sturmabteilung!”
The World Surf League writes on its website:
One of the biggest surprises of the 2016 Qualifying Series has been the rise of Italian Leonardo Fioravanti. The 18-year old went on a charm offensive while ripping his way to the top of the QS rankings and torching several of the world’s best as a CT wildcard.
Though he’s slipped to No. 5 on the QS, Fioravanti has already locked a spot on the 2017 Samsung Galaxy World Championship Tour, and he won’t be the only fresh European face on Tour next year, because one of the hidden headlines of 2016 is there’s serious depth coming from that bench.
The quiet rise of Joan Duru is another big surprise. After a solid performance at the Hawaiian Pro the Frenchman has climbed to No. 2 on the QS, locking his spot on next year’s Tour.
Lacomare has a much tougher road to haul. But the Frenchman’s powerful backhand approach, with its sweet, fading bottom turn, is well suited to Sunset’s reef-churning walls. His heavy-footed snaps throw buckets of spray, too, which helps impress judges sitting on a scaffold tower a quarter-mile away.
Morais is no stranger to big results in Hawaii. In 2013, the man from Portugal won the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing “Rookie of the Year” award, mainly on the back of a 4th place finish at the World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach. For the last week, it would have been easy to argue that outside of World Champ John John Florence, he’s been the form surfer of the event.
That’s an Italian, two Frenchmen and a Portuguese. A new power axis! Or, as they say in European, a “Großdeutsches Reich!”
Do you think John John is scared? Maybe? He probably shouldn’t worry his blonde head but… maybe?
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What we need is some Scandinavian types in the wsl. Then you would get the lithe/lissom blonde Vikings out there. No more need to ask if surfing needs a Conor Macgregor.
This years rookie class surfed timid and safe. Hope the next group brings it.
They started out pretty good.
Stu and Ciao did. If you want to beat the old guard, kill them with modernism and aggression.
Don’t forget Conner ‘secret turn’ Coffin. He was killing them softly with his style, first event.
What the fuck is a charm offensive?
A bloody good oxymoron that’s what.
Chas, those Nazi innuendos and comparisons are boring and lame. Putting an Italian, a Frenchman and a Portuguese into one pot just shows that don’t know much about European history…
No, there is a common history – a proud tradition of raping and pillaging! The WSL has been given fair warning by Mr Smith!
The Italian were pretty shit colonizers outside of the Mediterranean, for what it’s worth.
Rome?
I know they helped make you a saint, Jimmy, but the Romans and nation-state Italians are completely different animals.
Ah come on man, show me an Italian who isn’t proud of the Roman Empire! I have a Friend from Venice who has a Roman legionnaires full suit, he goes to reenactments every year, a strange but marvellous man! We won’t mention Ethiopia!
True. But then again they use marinara and garlic for personal hygiene.
I mean really, nation-state Italy was so bad at colonizing that they let Somalia become Somalia.
You have to really suck at colonizing to let Italian Somaliland and Italian East Africa turn into what they are today.
Colonialism is a polite word for raping and pillaging! Being incompetent at it doesn’t make the Italians intrinsically better people than the English, the French, the Portuguese or the Germans!
Jimmy, you be preaching to da choir, mang.
But I echo that hallowed ivory tower when I say that Italy is a terrible example of an imperial nation state.
God I love beachgrit, can you imagine having this brief discussion on the Stab forum?
Fookin fagit, get outta here Cooper’s green label and cones ; Brasil poop nick dee some shit racial slur I own you pussy mom fagitzzzz
Moderator secret: there are commenters employed at roughly fifteen different elite universities on this site. Like where U.S. presidents study and shit. Why Yale and Stanford employees are on Beachgrit is beyond me, I’d expect it of the degenerates in the U of California system although the literacy level around here is a bit high for California State University graduates.
On second thoughts incompetent colonists are probably the best kind!
A proud tradition of r and p indeed! But what follows? Colonial empire…”white man’s burden”…gin and tonic…crumbling aristocracy…fans on the verandah…natives revolting…Gandhi etc…reverse colonisation…Brexit. Disaster awaits those who pin their faith on the European Storm!!
The British are not European! Brexit means no European leg. They only want their own tour, with no polish, no germans, no french, no colonials, no irish, no swedes, no norwegians, no portugese, no italians, no spanish, and definitely no muslims. Your teeth will be checked for authenticity! http://www.huffingtonpost.c…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Marlon Lipke was the ultimate euro hybrid. Engineered in germany and reared on portugese tube perfection.. Didnt make it past round 3 though. Problem is all these euros have diets consisting 50% of croissants and 50% of clove cigarettes. Nothin but butter and nicotine
That’s why they live forever, though!
The OG European stiff breeze was Carwyn Williams and the aptly named Russell Winter
Europeans don’t have Storms Chas! They sleep in, and nobody has dinner till 10pm.
And they have beautiful wild group sex at dinner parties. True!
That’s what I hear!
Hate to put spanner in the works but none are Deutsch mate!!
don’t matter m8
Interesting fact and surfing tie-in … the STURMABTEILUNG or “S.A.” were otherwise known as the “Brownshirts” because they wore brown shirts that had been remaindered by the German Army after their colonising stint in German South West Africa where they unleashed their later to be perfected genocidal tendencies on the Herero and Nama tribes. This was just down the coast from the sick lefts in modern day Namibia. [This book is a surprisingly good read “The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism”]
What will Nick Dee have to say about all this?
Surefire way to piss off European BG readers…wait, there aren’t any. Carry on with the edgy satire…
European Journeymen…..how do you say that in European?
europaischen Gesellen.
If history tells us anything, it’s that European surfers on Tour are perennially and screamingly pish.
(With apologies to J-Flo).
J-Flo may be French, but he is from Reunion island, which isn’t quite Europe last time I checked!
It’s under French rule. He’s French. He’s fucking European.
If not what is he?
A coconut.
Tahiti is under French Rule.
Are they Euros?
Good on ya. Give yourself a long, slow, smug clap…
I bet if J-Flo had frizzy locks, almond-on-chocolate skin, and an infectious smile everyone would forget that he’s French.
Sexy little Reunion Island is a French department which, strictly speaking, does make it part of the EU, if not the European continent.
I am aware of that, had a house mate from Reunion Island earlier this year, but we are not talking political geography here are we? J-Flo grew up in the Indian Ocean. His success or otherwise, hardly reflects on the ability of Europe as a region to produce WSL champions! Then again Pottz is British, sorta, so the ASP has already had a European invasion!
And lest we forget Glenn Hall, born, raised and shucked on the Emerald Isle! Green through and through!
Truly a real honest to god leprechaun! Now it may seem that I am being a little pedantic about J-Flo, and whether or not he is European, but it’s worth pointing out that he used to get the European ‘regional’ invite for the Eddie, which seemed a little convenient, considering that he rode for quiksilver!
Glen Hall is testament to the fact that in the 2000s any average surfer could make the CT if their trust fund was big enough and their stance low enough.