Meet: Bodyboarder who killed Kolohe’s J-Bay dream!

"You can't see it on the footage but he actually nose dives…"

A little scene setting.

As round two of the J-Bay contest turned on yesterday, surfers like springboks in flight on the vast green plains, one bodyboarder took exception to a wave of Kolohe Andino that promised to yield a ten. Far, far down the line, with Kolohe vulnerable inside the tube, a bodyboarder kicked into the wave, a decision so reckless many believed it cost Kolohe the heat.

Today, the bodyboarder was named as James Kates, an Australian bodyboarder, a very good one, stickers and so forth, who had apparently timed his South African vacation perfectly.

His board sponsor dragboardsco made the announcement via Instagram.

That post was followed up with more provocation. “Katesy’s over there seeing family. He’s stressing,” added dragboardco.

Encouraged by his sponsor’s antagonistic behaviour, BeachGrit called James, who’d miraculously flown from South Africa to his Thirroul home in Australia in less than a dozen hours, for his version of the event.

“Aw, he wasn’t making it,” Kates, who is also the drummer in an eighties-aspired guitar band called The Pinheads, said. “You can’t see it on the footage but he actually nose-dives. I have faster reflexes so I was straight onto it.”

Kates laughs.

And laughs.

And laughs.

And laughs so much more he sounds like he might convulse and vomit.

His battery goes flat.

Instagram is a hysterical and unreliable organ is it not?

Comments invited.