Writer analyses every single scoring wave of Jordy Smith at J-Bay. The results will shock!
This was supposed to happen the next day but I ran into an old friend in the carpark and a few shots of spiced rums later there we went again, no sober analysis.
Then, the local point was falling out of the sky over the weekend and the sober analysis got kicked to the kerb.
But this one is real.
Straight up, there were five or six surfers in the draw who, theoretically, could have done what Filipe did. And I include Italo, Gabby, and reluctantly Kolohe in that list, but only one other likely to do it in a heat, that being John John Florence.
But while John could have done it but didn’t, Filipe did. Not once, but twice.
John didn’t because he has been trained, both by his own hand and by his coach, to restrict the performance envelope. This is what pro surfing does. It penalises mistakes so heavily because of the format that a certain amount of conservatism is mandatory. John has learnt to surf at a lesser level than his peak best, as has every other member of the top ten. The only exception to this rule being Kelly Slater, who has learnt to surf better in competition than he does in free surfs.
Or had.
Any quasi-competent recreational surfer could ride J-Bay as beautiful as it gets and stitch together a pair of threes on best-ever rides. Any competent pointbreak surfer can ride the tube at Supers. The pro’s are expected to exploit that canvas to reach hitherto unseen levels of performance.
That is what makes Filipe’s wave, his overall performance, despite some stylistic flaws, the best in pro surfing history. The fact that he was so easily able and willing to overcome the inherent conservatism of a man-on-man heat and the pro surfing format in general.
Mick Fanning said the wave (J-Bay) is the star and we are just here to do nothing and make the wave look good.
Au contraire Michael.
Any quasi-competent recreational surfer could ride J-Bay as beautiful as it gets and stitch together a pair of threes on best-ever rides. Any competent pointbreak surfer can ride the tube at Supers. The pro’s are expected to exploit that canvas to reach hitherto unseen levels of performance.
And, by and large, they didn’t.
When you consider Andy Irons opened the final at Barra in Mexico in 2006, more than 10 years ago, with a lofty straight air as an opening move. A section connector. And you consider what Filipe did, you realise how much music has been left unplayed.
Jordy Smith is the worst safety surfer on tour. Did you notice after the Grit bought numerical analysis to the game that the WSL cribbed it? I did. This time an analysis of Jordy turn-by-turn was done. I went through every single one of his scoring waves and gave every turn a number from 1-10. Ten was the highest-risk turn, the most radical and zero was, well, falling off or doing nothing.
Jordy’s camp can rail against this and shoot the messenger or they can do the analysis themselves and face the reality. Absent an angry, belligerent Jordy, what we get is safe, low energy surfing.
As a reference point, Jordy’s standard top-turn wrap, a turn he can do with zero risk 99.99% of the time, was assigned a five. This was painstaking, tedious work. Out of 85 counted turns, 17 scored in the excellent range (eight and above) and eight of those came in a single heat (round five resurf against Conner Coffin, Jordy’s best heat by a mile).
Jordy’s average turn score came in at a very safe 6.22. That is, safe surfing.
Jordy’s camp can rail against this and shoot the messenger or they can do the analysis themselves and face the reality. Absent an angry, belligerent Jordy, what we get is safe, low energy surfing.
Sad, yes. Inevitable, no.
Nothing lights up the proud surfwriter more than going sloppy fourths on a subject. On the tens there is only one conclusion we can reach and it is well supported by the science of psychology.
A mass abrogation of executive function bought on by a sustained period of emotional over-excitement and subsequent discharge.
Translated: Judges lost their marbles after viewing too many perfect waves. You can Google all this Richie Porta. Type executive function, human decision making, effects of emotion, cognitive bias, flaws in decision making etc.
It’s all there. No blame, no judgement. What’s astounding is not when judges freak out but how often they get it right. We can wait until the next iteration of pro surfing before judging changes.
We can wait.
Until then, see you at Teahupoo.
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longtom, ever paddled out at jbay ? Jordy did way more committed powerful turns than anyone bar JF and FT. Frederico also did huge carves, while some of John’s turns in that heat were flicky. It’s such a subjective sport and you had to be there to really get the bigger picture of what was going down. Analysing turns after the comp has ended and then calling that safe surfing is your job. It’s the surfers job to ride empty perfect jbay. Guess they win.
JJF had the best carves and lines by far, along with Papa Smurf. I am still trying to process WTF happened and how Frederico ended up in the final by surfing so safely.
Have you noticed the spray from Jordy turns are about double that of most on tour and he goes very vertical straight up in most turns? I reckon you have too much time as a bus driver and have some form of grudge against South Africans. That is my analysis.
you want to analyse the height of Jordys spray vs Toledo?
nothing against South Africans bru.
Any relation to the old minister for finance Barend du Plessis?
Any relation to crabs?
Mick fanning and ADS are proof that safe surfing wins titles. And at the end of the day, a world title is the end goal.
I’ll say it again…
Toledo’s double-chop-hop 10 should never have happened. It was morning sickness howling cross shore wind with a sunrise in the eyes. They should have put the comp on hold until it cleaned up and went offshore.
He was clever doing two chop hops in the wind because it was so shit nobody could turn properly. But again, with that forecast everyone should have been sleeping in not running two heats.
When I saw the waves i turned off the computer it was too ugly to watch.
If I was there for that ten days I wouldn’t have surfed then it was so bad.
I don’t believe that is the future of surfing at Jbay telegraphing two chop hops on a 500m wall. JJF’s lines were the future… Or if I’m wrong Chipa Wilson and Dion Agius should be world title contenders and we’re all fucked
i like dion but. he has good fashion sense so he deserves the world title. is this in the scoring criteria?
Only Chas can make that judgement.
Sure, add pre surf fashion etiquette to the scoreline
If you can go down the line and just do big ‘safety’ turns followed by a cover up to get a 10, why would a surfer try something different? I blame the judges.
Agreed. Even jordys 10 from two years ago or whenever that they keep replaying is the most pathetic safety surfing on a perfect canvas.
If you get a bunch of guys to judge who come from beach breaks like Byron, Brazil and Huntington then they don’t know how a long point break should be surfed.
i feel its crucial to define “good turn” properly. at JBay i would say the analysis must include the speed in which the turn was initiated, its placement on the wave (critical vs out on the shoulder), the commitment required (real chance of falling), the extent to which the arc fit the section where the turn was laid down, clean rails (no bog), clean exit (no sketch laid back in the whitewater shit) and naturally, how big/steep was the section on which it was executed. that wrap might be a 5 but i bet it isn’t always a 5. same with Joel, Mick, Conner, and Frederico, as mentioned by shark week.
I agree, but How?? Judges on the video replays non-stop or individual judges specializing on a specific maneuver to decide the winner sounds like a slow painful experience for us punters…
yeah, Gerr will judge the secret turns
If Jordy is ‘safe surfing’ then wtf was Frederico doing?? I didn’t see him do a single turn I’d score above a 5 yet he almost took out the final?! That was some bullshit judging…
yes! its weird to me how pro surfing judges will sometimes severely underscore the big names. (to me both JJF and medina were ripped off against morais) i suppose that could be seen as proof its not “fixed” but makes it boring both in terms of action and storyline
he surfs even safer, I actually have been watching replays and seen how much rail gets buried on the top turn , and yes LT is right about Jordy , but I think he has very average boards and nurses his turns a lot , Brother was one of the worst at J-bay , bogged in his top turns no Flow , a lot has to do with judges are rewarding quantity of turns vs quality , but me see’s a lot of surfers battling their equipment!
So is the “Kelly’s Cocoa Beach Buddy” right?
As I said in a previous post…I think if it were JJF v. Felipe in the finals we would have seen generational surfing. 10 years from now you’d be waxing poetic the same way you speak wistfully of Andy in Mexico. So thanks, Richie Porta for fucking all of us.
Friends and I discussed this during the heat where Filipe went off, and Jordy responded with floaters.
When was the last time Jordy did an air in competition? Guys been throwing down backflips and rodeos in his edits for years, but I can’t remember the last time he elected to try a cookie cutter air reverse instead of a shitty, safe top wrap in a heat.
Remember his parts in Mod Col, or Lost Atlas? Where’s that fuckin guy? That guy’s next level.
I was just about to say the same thing. By buddy was replaying Modern Collective yesterday and the Jordy sections were boggling my mind. He’s definitely got worse at surfing.
ever since he got off JSs