Rule of thumb: If you can shove your whole arm in
it, you probably don't want to be inside!
I was waiting to post this, out of respect for
Longtom’s contest-wrap territory.
From a writing standpoint, the offense of diluting someone
else’s topic warrants nothing short of a SharkAttack, and I’ve
already enough issues in regards to vital limbs.
(Somewhat) thankfully, Shearer touched on the
very topic I wish to discuss, if only in passing. He said, in
regards to Filipe Toledo’s 19.63 performance, “Judges got the score
order wrong: the first wave, given a 9.63, was the Ten.”
And while I don’t agree with the general sentiment that either
of those waves deserved a ten, or, as Longtom says, the
judges should have felt a ten, I believe the point within
his point was this: tubes are being overscored at J-Bay.
And I would agree, to the nth.
Now, this argument is built upon the feeble shoulders of
subjectivity, meaning that you have the right to lambast, ridicule,
and poke fun at every facet of my person. But doesn’t it bother you
that guys are getting eights, nines, tens even, for flimsy,
stall-heavy tubes? The types of tubes that you’d claim to your
friends for weeks, but also the types of tubes would warrant fours
and fives at Cloudbreak?
J-Bay is a performance wave, plain and simple. Can you get very
barreled? Yes, but when we think of J-Bay, we think of Fanning and
Curren drawing impossibly long lines, not Johnny Pintail threading
a double-up down the end.
The barrels at this event have been mostly high, tight, and
unimpressive, aside from the surfers’ abilities in limberness and
“speed management”, noted also by Long T. But do we remember
Snapper, or any other event for that matter, where Richie Porta has
said, without equivocation, that the judges don’t want to see soft,
stally tubes? That they want to see freight trains running down the
track and the surfer, the symbolic just-too-late lover in this
instance, chasing down the locomotive for his last chance at
romance?
Then why the hell did Jeremy Flores get a nine for his top
third of the wave, nose sticking out the whole way, capped off only
with a non-commital drop wallet barrel ride?
Keep in mind Jeremy is on my Fantasy Team when I say, that was
complete and utter bullshit.
The same is true for Leo F. and Filipe T and maybe even
John.
The way I see it is this — most anyone can luck into one of
those long, tight, J-Bay runners. The pros ride them exceptionally
well, but to equate stalling and squeezing with driving off the
bottom and turning the lip inside-out is a travesty, especially at
a wave with such an incredible canvas for maneuvers. I often feel
they’d be better off dodging the barrel altogether, unless it’s one
of the throaty runners down the end.
In making this argument, I feel it’s necessary to divulge one
important fact: given the timezone disparity between CA and SA,
I’ve not been able to watch any of the event live. Watching in
realtime, I think, is a vital component to wholly understanding the
judging scale of any given day, or heat.
But let me ask you this — when 2018 rolls around, and the WSL
drops a 2017 highlight package to hype the upcoming J-Bay event,
what clips do you think they’ll use? John threading a waist-high
tube on an overhead wave, or John laying down a vicious,
fin-flashing frontside hack?
You know, like Gabby’s 6.97 at
Cloudbreak that has broken the WSL’s VHS…
Stick that in your judging criteria.
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Opinion: Kelly Slater must never die!
By Chas Smith
Now is the time for us to stand behind the world's
greatest surfer!
Fucking son of a bitch Surfer
magazine. Damned motherfucking piece of shit. And let me catch my
breath……… Ohhhhhh hell. Surfer magazine…. you are a
bastard publication. An unloved asshole. A rim lick. A ball kick.
And I am coming for your ginger-haired Editor-in-Queef Todd
Prodanovich.
I am coming for him hard.
The Inertia‘s Zach Weisberg has been vanquished. Me n
Stab‘s Morgan Williamson are now best pals. It’s only
Todd Prodanovich of Surfer magazine, the backbone-less
wonder. Todd Prodddddanovich of Surfer magazine, the King
of All Chickens.
I know what happened on the North Shore. I know, am coming and
hell (BeachGrit) is coming with me.
In any case, I once wrote a story titled Grace, Kelly for
Surfing magazine but Todd Prodanovich at Surfer
has apparently appropriated the brilliant
header and used it for a Scott Bass piece about
surfing or some shit.
Grace, Kelly was a seminal piece of surf writing because it was
how I met surfing’s grandest poobah of all the one, the only, Matt
Warshaw.
He had penned a story in the New York Times almost 10
years ago about how Kelly Slater should retire. I disagreed in
Surfing.
Now the story is gone, disappeared by that cowardly Todd
Prodanovich, but we (me n Matt) first met in New York at a film
festival. It was the high water mark of my career. We drank beer,
we laughed, we hugged and have been fast friends ever since.
In any other case, I was looking for that story today because
today there is also much chatter that Kelly Slater, with his
broken J-Bay
foot, should retire. I wanted to reference it and
reference Matt Warshaw’s New York Times piece because I
disagree more now than I did then.
Kelly Slater needs to surf until he’s 50 and probably until he’s
60 and maybe until he’s 70. He needs to stick around and not go off
and really get serious about his brand or his boards or his pool.
He needs to stick around and do what he does. Surf
professionally.
Why?
I don’t exactly know for sure but I feel it. I feel that he
should push beyond the Favre absurdity into new realms of
possibility. Oh I don’t think Kelly Slater will ever win another
world title but I think he could compete and be interesting and
surf well for another two decades at least and especially if he
changes his boards.
I think as long as Kelly Slater is surfing professionally then
global warming will stay in check, that Kim Jong Un will not really
be able to develop a nuclear warhead, that the earth will keep
spinning.
Kelly Slater is as essential as chemical bonding.
Do you dare disagree?
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J-Bay Analysis: Filipe’s Great Creative
Leap!
By Longtom
Filipe Toledo's dazzling frottage rips hole in
fabric of universe!
Like the great Camus, and the incomparably
great Melville, I’m not a full-time professional (surf) writer.
I’m a working man who has a job (bus driver) and for that I am
truly grateful because it’s meant never having had to cup balls or
fondle the shafts of the industry or the pro surfers I write about.
God knows some surf journalists have fulfilled those job
descriptors, literally. I only mention to put the following scene
into context.
Halfway between Byron and the Goldy, speeding along the Pacific
Motorway in the night, paying passengers, cute couple, she French,
he German and maybe a Pommy Australian working in the building
industry. J-Bay playing awkwardly loudly through the phone on the
car radio.
Jordy vs Staples. Pottz and Turpel on the call.
Staples rides the last wave , needing a four-something and, it’s
not enough. A little while later Turpel brings up the ride. What
followed was extraordinary, as extraordinary in it’s own way as the
shark call. It went like this:
Heavy sigh, dead air. Long dead air. High laugh. Grunt.
Turpel: “Pottz, there’s lots of theories outside the numbers.
Maybe Dale didn’t show the judges he wanted it enough.”
Pottz: “Absolutely. His body language was very nonchalant, he
was really cruising. I’m not surprised, I think maybe
subconsciously maybe he had that Sean Holmes scenario where he
didn’t want to upset the World Title Race. Dale and Jordy are super
good friends and maybe he didn’t want to get in the way of his
World Title Race. Maybe he tapped off.”
Turpel: long silence…
Huh? Say fucking what? He tapped off?
I hit the brakes, pulled the bus over, off the road and pulled
out some lined note=paper to write it down, a habit I learned off
the New Yorker’s Gay
Talese.
Did Pottz just insinuate that a professional athlete threw a
heat, tanked? Did he imply that the working gal was robbed of an
honest exchange?
From the Australian Institute of Sport: Activities and
behaviours that define sport as lacking integrity include: creating
an unfair advantage or the manipulation of results through
performance enhancing drugs, match fixing or tanking.
I’m not accusing Staples of tanking. But Pottz’s loose
lips do bring up a big potential problem for a a sport now in
thrall to the easy cash of online gambling. Could there be a sport
with more easy potential for tanking and throwing heats to
influence results?
Who would know?
The only sure thing has been wherever sports betting has become
entrenched in a sport, corruption and match fixing have followed as
sure as night follows day.
Ever have a dog day afternoon? I left the wife’s car running in
the front yard after my car blew up and a debt collector’s demand
notice showed up in the mail. Unpaid tax. Ran inside to check the
computer to see if the comp was on and heard a loud bang and the
house shook. Car had rolled back, gathered steam and smashed into
the house. That, like a spaz pump @ J-Bay, is a bad error for the
working man. Real bad. Thus, a mood in need of some serious
entertainment descended.
Six heats, including four this evening (Aus time) in perfect
J-Bay without a single excellent wave score. The peak moment of
entertainment was seeing Kolohe get stuffed in the tub by a
boogieboarder down the Impossibles section. There was a request for
a re-surf , denied by the commissioner. Great joy to hear Shaun
Tomson come out so strongly contra spaz pumps, although he
diplomatically referred to them as “rail changes” and called them
superfluous.
Finally, the day kicked into gear. Leo Fioravanti and Seabass
lit up, braces of eights tossed into the breeze like spin-drift,
Seabass should have got a 10. Seabass couldn’t get a back-up,
Seabass lost. It broke the ice of a mediocre morning for
Toledo.
There was consternation from some commenters that Toledo didn’t
get a mention on day one. That’s because I didn’t get to see him
surf, probably drinking shots of some foul aniseed liquor, but that
mistake won’t be repeated. His flow wasn’t perfect, little twitchy
for mine, but the gaffs were real. The tuberiding was sublime, the
“speed management” to employ the phrase du jour, was lakka
I tune you bru. Judges got the score order wrong: the first wave,
given a 9.63, was the Ten. The lady in red look, the bleached
blonde; it was like he was channeling his own past master like
Kelly. In this case Peter Drouyn around the
time of the MR Super Challenge.
I still hold a grudge against Caio Ibelli for beating JJF at
Bells and robbing us of a Jordy/JJF final and his low squat style
offends my sense of taste, but he swung that board like a club at
six-foot J-Bay and beat Stu Kennedy all over the head with it.
Ever wonder how someone achieves excellence, I mean a truly
elite performance in an aesthetic endeavour like surfing?
And it is aesthetic.
Judges score it with their eyes. Out of all the ham-fisted
efforts at explaining judging the only thing that Richie Porta said
that has ever made sense is his statement that judges feel
a ten. I think about it all the time. According to peak performance
expert Anders Ericsson, just practising, or doing the same thing
over and over again (think Malcolm Gladwell’s ten thousand
hours) isn’t enough. We just end up seeing the same
thing over and over.
Is this not the story of, not just the vast majority of rec
surfers, but pro’s as well? Most surf the same all through their
career.
I can only think of four great leaps in performance during a
career. JJF, with his massive leap forward in carving surfing, ADS
with the greatest bottom turn/top turn combination improvement in
history, Kelly Slater 2010-13 as he followed through on the Dane
Reynolds revolution with huge air rotations at Bells Beach and New
York and, finally, Filipe Toledo who added the fastest turn speed
and rail-game in the biz onto his aerial attack.
It’s not a question of coaching or technique or equipment,
although these are all vital ingredients. It’s primarily a creative
act, an effort of imagination.
Too weird, too hippie? I’m just passing on the latest science is
all.
Ace and Joan Duru put me to bed. I’m sure if I missed something
we’ll get it in the comments. I’ll deal with reality in the
morning. It won’t be pretty, but I couldn’t be more cheerful.
Sit down bitch, be
humble.
Oh yeah, Kelly ….Mistah Kurtz, he dead.
Corona Open J-Bay Round 2 Results:
Heat 1: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 10.67 def. Dale Staples (ZAF) 10.27
Heat 2: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 13.10 def. Michael February (ZAF)
11.67
Heat 3: Owen Wright (AUS) 12.34 def. Ethan Ewing (AUS) 11.10
Heat 4: Jadson Andre (BRA) 15.80 def. Kolohe Andino (USA) 13.20
Heat 5: Julian Wilson (AUS) 14.27 def. Josh Kerr (AUS) 12.53
Heat 6: Connor O’Leary (AUS) 13.40 def. Miguel Pupo (BRA) 13.10
Heat 7: Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 16.63 def. Sebastian Zietz (HAW)
15.76
Heat 8: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 19.63 def. Kanoa Igarashi (USA)
12.83
Heat 9: Caio Ibelli (BRA) 16.43 def. Stuart Kennedy (AUS) 14.80
Heat 10: Joan Duru (FRA) 15.87 def. Adrian Buchan (AUS) 14.00
Heat 11: Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 17.03 def. Wiggolly Dantas (BRA)
16.37
Heat 12: Frederico Morais (PRT) 15.73 def. Ian Gouveia (BRA)
14.00
Corona Open J-Bay Round 3 Match-Ups:
Heat 1: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Joan Duru (FRA)
Heat 2: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Bede Durbidge (AUS)
Heat 3: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Ezekiel Lau (HAW)
Heat 4: Connor O’Leary (AUS) vs. Frederico Morais (PRT)
Heat 5: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Caio Ibelli (BRA)
Heat 6: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Jadson Andre (BRA)
Heat 7: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA)
Heat 8: Filipe Toledo (BRA) vs. Kelly Slater (USA)
Heat 9: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Jeremy Flores (FRA)
Heat 10: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Conner Coffin (USA)
Heat 11: Michel Bourez (PYF) vs. Italo Ferreira (BRA)
Heat 12: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) vs. Jack Freestone (AUS)
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Sexy: Filipe Toledo scores fashion 10!
By Chas Smith
The man from Ipanema and professional surfing's
first ever perfect sartorial heat!
What a day of professional surfing! It
literally had everything and I dare not even touch the action as I
look forward to Steve Shearer’s daily wraps like I look forward to
that first 2 PM cocktail. Crisp, clear, invigorating. Knocking life
straight back into true perspective, or at the very least a more
balance one.
But there is one thing I know he won’t talk about and that is
Filipe Toledo’s J-Bay perfection.
Oh not his 10 point ride, that will be discussed I’m sure, but
his sartorial perfection. The first heat ever given a full fashion
10!
Andy Irons almost got a 10 many years ago for this singlet/trunk
combo…
Through no fault of his own professional surfing was dealing
singlets that looked NASCAR back then and he didn’t quite match his
reds so he got a fashion 9.87.
Yesterday, though, Filipe Toledo went red on red with peroxide
blonde hair and 93 pounds of sartorial boom…
The black kneecaps on his wetsuit set off the white Corona
lettering on his singlet. His hair, black peeking through white.
Peroxided mustache and goatee lending an air of Greek demi-god. The
skin, a nut brown hue also nodding toward Mt. Olympus, pulling the
ensemble together…
I could really go on all day but must retreat to the swimming
pool to celebrate this momentous day because I just got the finest
pair of Etro trunks.
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Breaking: Slater Breaks Foot at J-Bay!
By Michael Ciaramella
Right in the metatarsals!
Oh this surfing, it’s a painful game.
Just yesterday my buddy messaged me, inquiring which orthopedic
specialist I had seen for my ACL/MCL.
Turns out that, while surfing in Puerto Escondido this past
week, he too bent his knee backwards — sending shockwaves up his
spine and a distinct tenderness to his hinge.
“It’s alright,” he assured me. “Now both my knees are evened
out.”
While not quite on the level of skating or motocross, surfing
has a way of putting you on your ass, or head, or… metatarsals.
Just ask the greatest surfer of all time, Kelly Slater, who
hours ago suffered a broken foot while surfing in Jeffrey’s Bay,
South Africa. Let’s read from the Gram:
Sheesh. Six weeks means Teahupo’o and likely Trestles are out of
the cards, which would leave Slater, currently rated eighteenth in
the world, in a very vulnerable position.
Let’s just guesstimate that, by losing third round here and 25th
at both Chopes and Lowers, Kelly would fall somewhere around the
26-mark in the standings.
Do you think he’d be able to crawl out of that hole, with only
France, Portugal, and Pipe remaining in the season? Five years ago,
it’d be without question. You’d have put five grand on Kelly
finalling at Pipe if that’s what he needed to do. He was too good
and too stubborn to lose like that.
But now… who knows?
And isn’t that terrifying!
Like, what if Slater fell off Tour? Sure, he’d almost definitely
be saved by an Injury Wildcard, but the idea of Kelly being carried
along by some technicality hurts my soul.
Before the season started, Kelly stated that this would likely
be his final game of connect-the-same-eleven-dots. But do you
really think he could go out like this?
It feels like he’s waiting for a highlight occasion, his
Freddy P. moment, if you will, to turn his
back on competitive surfing for good. Save a win at Pipe, that
seems improbable in 2017.
So what the hell does he do? Try to scrape his way back into the
Top-22 by year’s end? Or fail to do so and cling to the injury
wildcard, just for another swing at increasingly unlikely success?
Does he drop the game altogether?
The Goat is in a serious hole, with no obvious way out.