The male gender category champion Julian Wilson. | Photo: WSL

Quik Pro Finals: “Satan made Kirra to spite God!”

By Longtom

7 years ago

Julian Wilson and Lakey Peterson win respective gender categories at semi-awesome Kirra…

Plenty of thinking time in the scotopic light 500 yards or so out off Big Groyne Kirra this morning in the cyclone swell. Swimming, blue foamy racing in the rip up to North Kirra. Lots of water moving. Thick beasts unloading on the Big Groyne part of the sandbar.

A day for Kirra Specialists, thought I, or dumb luck from rank virgins.

It is a wave for specialists and with Kelly a no-show, Mick, Joel and Steph out the closest thing to a specialist left in the draw was Julian Wilson.

Obscene screams woke me in the dark. A fox in the henhouse? I ran outside with a headlamp and found a python strangling a bat. By the time I’d loaded the Camry the snake was gone and the dead bat lay prone on the ground. I read as a bad portent.

Owen failed to load, Ace spiked a couple medium-sized waves for an easy win in the first heat of the day. The last time the comp ended with a Kirra final day was way back in 2013, the last great Year of the Kelly Era, at the start of the Speaker reign and before pro surfing was even a twinkle in Sophie Goldschmidt’s eye. Kelly’s “honeypot” strategy netted him multiple ten-point rides and a memorable final ride with priority against a bird flipping Parko.

You recall, surely.

Heat two of the quarters featured no Kirra specialists and exposed a gap in Filipe’s resume for World Champ. He couldn’t best Tomas Hermes, who wouldn’t have made a heat of the Kirra Surfriders club round. Kelly would have watched in horror.

From the front bar of the Kirra surf club the good old boys enjoyed Wilson’s easy win over M-Rod and erupted for Griff’s triple banger ten-pointer. It was a wave that rescued the morning from unflattering comparisons with 2013. “Fucken Mick woulda been getting’ them all fucken day long maate!” said a florid-faced bloke beside me from between magnificently mottled jowls.

Wilson/Colapinto, Ace/Hermes Semi’s. Not a Finals roster anyone in their right mind could have foreseen.

Do you have a favourite Kirra Specialist?

You might think of Michael Peterson or Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew maybe Kelly “Willie” Slater.

Or, if you live locally, Sean “Reg” Riley, Neal Purchase Jnr, Jason “China” O’Connor or Nick Vasicek might come to mind. My fav is an unknown Kiwi guy named Gizza I shared a tenement in Surfers Paradise with. A small-time eccy and weed dealer Gizza had an unholy love of Kirra that he would sacrifice anything to consummate. One golden afternoon with Kirra pumping we all piled into a Valiant Safari and headed to Kirra, Gizza’s heavily pregnant gal included. She had a doctor’s appointment and Gizza was expected to attend. Outside the Doc’s on a seedy part of the Palm Beach strip she piled out and eyeballed our Kiwi anti-hero, “Come on Gizza, lets go”.

Gizza sat as still as a buddha and uttered the immortal words, “Hey babe, all I know is Kirra’s pumping and I’m out there.”

We drove off with his gal screaming at the top of her lungs, “Fuck you, fuck you Gizza!”

I don’t know if it was worth it for Giz. Six months later he was dead in a bathtub.

It’s that kind of wave.

I couldn’t have picked Ace Buchan to final at the Quik Pro despite insanely sharp, error-free, high-drifting hooks on his backhand. It just always seemed like someone better would topple him. But no-one did. And he kept air-dropping into kegs and making waves, to meet Julian in the Final.

Australia’s second-best ever PM Paul Keating famously said “You change the Prime Minister, you change the country.”

As for PM’s so for pro surfing CEO’s. Rabbit Bartholomew birthed the Dream Tour and presided over the Kelly/Andy rivalry, what historians in future will refer to as the Golden Age of Pro Surfing. He was the last True Believer to head the organisation. Brodie Carr fended off a Rebel Tour and rewrote contracts to appease Kelly Slater.

In his zeal to create private stadiums out of public space, Paul Speaker launched aggressive ambit claims over everything that happened at a WSL event. The atmosphere created was authoritarian and oppressive, a heavy hand on the shoulder always seemed nearby for freelancers like me, maybe rendition to a secret black ops WSL re-education centre.

And Sophie?

Clueless by her own admission she is what writer Tim Winton calls a “citizen in a strange world.” But she has loosened the program up. The ambit claims seem a little less obvious, maybe because she realises they are unenforceable and reliant on the goodwill of democratically elected institutions who hand out taxpayer-funded permits. Permits that can be denied.

But, more likely, because Sophie’s reign has a technological “Final” solution to the untameable ocean. With the tub comes the stadium and the timetable, the broadcast, the tickets, all the things that have eluded the sport so far. You can see why she would loosen her grip on “ocean” surfing and embrace the wave system. The fractured sport she creates will be her legacy and all the King’s horses won’t be able to put the pieces together again.

The gamble to hold off the event for a couple hours paid off massively after an epic final between J-Dub and Ace. Ace was comboed once, then twice, after Julian ducked and weaved through sandy caverns, the first of which was a ten all day long. Ace kept fighting deserving the mantle of Kirra specialist but Julian was too strong, too good.

Couldn’t have picked the men’s final but it would have been a travesty if Lakey Peterson didn’t hoist the trophy. She dominated a one-sided final.

If beauty is truth and truth is beauty then the great deceiver Satan himself must have created Queensland to spite God because no-one ages uglier and happier than a Queenslander.

No-one sacrifices more to ride the most gorgeous tubes on earth. Their youth, their beauty, gone in a blur of blue-water tubes and alcoholic excess.

Except Julian Wilson. He’ll be beautiful for ever.

Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Final Results:
1 – Julian Wilson (AUS) 17.43
2 – Adrian Buchan (AUS) 15.10

Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Semifinal Results:
SF 1: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 10.00 def. Tomas Hermes (BRA) 9.17
SF 2: Julian Wilson (AUS) 13.77 def. Griffin Colapinto (USA) 11.66

Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Quarterfinal Results:
QF 1: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 13.50 def. Owen Wright (AUS) 2.50
QF 2: Tomas Hermes (BRA) 8.73 def. Filipe Toledo (BRA) 7.33
QF 3: Julian Wilson (AUS) 14.44 def. Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 10.00
QF 4: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 16.43 def. Michel Bourez (PYF) 12.44

Roxy Pro Gold Coast Final Results:
1 – Lakey Peterson (USA) 15.67
2 – Keely Andrew (AUS) 5.67

Roxy Pro Gold Coast Semifinal Results:
Heat 1: Lakey Peterson (USA) 11.00 def. Malia Manuel (HAW) 8.33
Heat 2: Keely Andrew (AUS) 7.50 def. Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 6.77

2018 WSL Men’s CT Jeep Leaderboard (After Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast):
1 -Julian Wilson (AUS) 10,000 pts
2 – Adrian Buchan (AUS) 7,800 pts
3 – Griffin Colapinto (USA) 6,085 pts
3 – Tomas Hermes (BRA) 6,085 pts

2018 Women’s CT Jeep Leaderboard (After Roxy Pro Gold Coast):
1 -Lakey Peterson (USA) 10,000 pts
2 – Keely Andrew (AUS) 7,800 pts
3 – Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 6,085 pts
3 – Malia Manuel (HAW) 6,085 pts

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"Tennis has soul," says Bobby Martinez.

Bobby’s Tennis Tour Dream Comes True!

By Jazzy P

7 years ago

The template for the WSL comes straight from the ATP. Who knew? Bobby knew!

I thought it was common knowledge that the WSL is built on the blueprint of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). The contest/tournament calendar, the ranking system, the contest format and now the exhibition extras – all the same as the ATP.

It makes sense, therefore, that professional surfing’s owner has turned the reigns over to Sophie Goldschmidt with her four years experience as a vice-president at the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association).

It ain’t sexy but it ain’t crazy, if you dig.

Listen. If you were a minnow sport like surfing and looking to a big brother for advice, tennis makes sense. Count the similarities: an individual sport, competitors from a wide variety of nations, tournaments scattered around the world. And tennis has provided household names and reaped fortunes for over half a century.

But Tennis is a rich man’s game. The outfits, the tradition, the silence. That ain’t surf or it at least it wasn’t.

And isn’t tennis really about the four grand slams? Does anyone actually tune in for anything else?

Tennis certainly doesn’t have super-star names who don’t compete but attract fabulous salaries and starry eyes for knocking the ball around the practise court. There’s no Dane Reynolds, no Creed McTaggart, no Craig Anderson. And judging from tennis’s moves trying to shorten and re-jig the format over the past few years, you know they’re having a golf-type issue in trying to appeal to the new generation.

If we look purely from a governing body’s format, what has the WSL borrowed?

1. Tournament Structure – Tennis has the Challenger Tour and the World Tour. Surfing has the Qualification Series and Championship Tour. Both formats allow competitors to earn points through lower events and use these points to qualify for higher-rated events.

2. Tournament Funding – The level of an ATP event (points available), all depends on the prizemoney offered, and as a result the more funded to the governing body. Want to stage the ATP1000 in your crummy little neighbourhood, just cough up the cash and it’s yours. Surfing is the same game. Fork out the money and you can have a QS10,000 at your local break.

3. Hopman Cup / Founders Cup – Did anyone else notice that Sophie’s first big splash, The Founders Cup, takes its colours from the Hopman Cup? International all-team tournament with mixed gender teams? Hopman.

4. Nitto ATP Finals / WSL Mentawaii Finals – The WSL will introduce a finals series to finish of the year in 2019. When this was announced everyone’s eyes went to a NBA/NFL/MLB finals format thinking those jocks were the inspiration. It was actually tennis that has had a finals format for years now. With an Emirates-sponsored ATP Race to London points ladder.

What does the future hold? Tennis has pushed towards indoor single day/night exhibitions to lure millennials in with loud music, flashy lights and a shorter time frame, the Laver Cup for example.

What’s surfing got? Pools, pools, pools.

And another similarity, to quote Billie Jean King, “Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility.”

Oh the similarities are just eerie!

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Layne Beachley: “I’m a proponent of sex sells!”

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Seven-time world champ weighs in on bikinis!

Multiple news outlets reported, yesterday, on the World Surf League’s alleged edict to photographers/videographers not to focus on female professional surfers’ rumps whilst duck diving/bottom turning. The original story appeared in Stab, though the WSL’s Vice-President of Global Brand Identity, Mr. Dave Prodan, told the Herald that Stab‘s reporting was “largely inaccurate.”

Still, a fun enough moment though it did not seem particularly noteworthy to me. I don’t ever recall seeing very tightly framed shots of female professional surfers’ rumps during a webcast nor have I ever read any complaints about any uncomfortable leering by the WSL’s lensmen.

Still. Fun. And even more fun when seven-time world champ Layne Beachley goes on the radio to discuss.

Now, where would you think Ms. Beachley would come down on the issue? Do you think she would decry blatant sexism whilst praising the WSL on its (now debunked) stricter guidelines? Well you are wrong. Layne says bring the sexy!

I respect the fact women can choose the bikinis they wish to surf in based on comfort or practicality. It’s up to them to choose how they want to present themselves. I think it’s a step in the wrong direction as far as telling cameramen that they can’t film girls duck-diving or doing bottom turns, because that’s a natural part of surfing. I appreciate the “zooming in” part though, I don’t think there’s any need to zoom in on it.

I’ve always been a proponent of “sex sells”, and that was a part of the generation that I came through, and we just struggled to get any attention and recognition, let alone sponsorships.

We’ve broken down those barriers and now the women are actually embracing there femininity, their beauty, their style, their grace and their sexiness. And if that’s helping them sell the sport and improve their chances of being supported throughout their careers, then good luck to them.

Such a wonderfully reasoned response in these shrill times. Don’t you think?

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Julian Wilson swings into the quarter-finals, despite rupturing his AC joint at the end of January. Here, with big brother Bart. | Photo: @tsherms

Day 4, Quik Pro: “Zero tolerance for score faking!”

By Longtom

7 years ago

Mick Fanning disappears; Filipe soars; judges discover the joys of tough love.

Kelly and I share many traits and life circumstances, including teenaged daughters, bad backs, suspicion of the media and bad insomnia. Laying awake listening to the vast industrial hum of 999 Twin Towns pokies in the wee hours I fretted that calling the mood yesterday soviet and sour was too harsh, just a reflection of my inner state after too many Coronas drunk with the great Mullet.

When Kelly announced his withdrawal I thought: the sport has moved on, you won’t be missed, we’ll get on fine without you. But we didn’t. Not yesterday anyhow. Save Medina and Parkinson, a world without Kelly felt smaller, more constrained and predictable: a QS World with a bush league vibe. The surfing, in waves tailor-made for flaring and high perf, was safety to the max and I am very, very, very, very happy that Pritamo Ahrendt scored it accordingly. A ballsy statement.

Today, was different.

Launching the Fanning Foamy out of Mermaids corner in the dark I got throttled by a squadron of gaping Snapper rocks caverns (do not Google) and smoked down to Rainbow Bay. A close range cyclone swell. I know this fucking music! Every Queensland pointbreak surfer does. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Ragged Glory. Find the bass line and enjoy the guitar squalls. Shut up and paddle.

The crowd finally engaged with the surfing, but it wasn’t Fanning they cheered. It was Toledo vs Ferreira that raised the crowd from three days of somnolence.

After watching the Fanning Coffin heat, magnificently eulogised by Joe Turpe,l I realised there really is only one path forwards for a man described as an “angel” by Owen Wright. He must become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. Imagine the global one-two punch of Parko as Mayor of Coolangatta and Fanning as Secretary-General of the UN. That would really put pro surfing into audience growth mode.

Italo’s backhand, best on tour, seemed undeniable against Filipe. But the crowd thought otherwise and judges seemed to cripple it by a crucial margin. Incensed, I stormed the media room to demand a judge breakdown. The spread on the best scoring waves differed by a point and a half which would have made all the difference in a heat decided by less than a point but Filipe had the crowd, had the jazz and by close of play the ends justified the means.

Mikey Wright has a schtick but it’s real, at least as far as the old skool warm-up goes: throwing a football around, the jumping jacks and the bush hat and big shaggy dog. Big man up close, well-muscled, 15-17% body fat. Could be a second-rower or a wide receiver. Behind the bogan facade are rock-solid skills and the crucial trait of composure.

“Whats the strategy against Medina?” I asked his coach Troy Brooks.

“Start strong and find the better waves. Mikey will do the bigger turns.”

That is a supremely confident strategy for a Wildcard to take into a heat against a World Champ and event winner.

Verging on arrogance. He will do bigger turns than Medina? OK, lets see it.

Medina was preparing up on the rocks. Strange scene. Very quiet, very holy. A crowd was gathered around. Girls on their haunches, boys with heads bowed. Medina himself was still and silent. Seconds passed like minutes. Sweat flowed like rivers. Then he raised his head and started to move. The silent crowd erupted with cheers and hallelujahs and speaking in tongues. A feeling like electricity passed through the crowd in sizzling ripples. A Brazilian girl fell backwards into me. I put my hand up to say it’s OK.

She said, “No prablem, eets tha life man”.

Mikey put the game plan into action, perfectly. Big strong, raw opening ride with completed powerful turns. Did exactly what he did to John Florence: overpowered him in the opening exchange to the tune of a two-point spread. A two- point spread is hard to overcome if a surfer can maintain composure. It was wonderful to watch Medina try and jam against Ragged Glory and find his own rhythm.

The judges were showing zero tolerance for score manufacturing and faking. Medina got a four for the best backhand blast I’ve ever seen. That turn felt like a kick in the guts from a mule, on the beach, well in the Corona Pavilion. The Australian Mullet put another big, brutal ride on the scoreboard and then let Medina swing away on shittier waves, only losing priority with two minutes to go. Gabby got choked out by the clock. Gone.

“How do you rate that performance?” I asked Troy Brooks.

“On par, for Mikey,” he said.

“Anything to improve upon?”

“He made a tactical error two minutes to go handing over priority but had such a mental advantage from the opening spread he got away with it.”

The Colapinto/Parkinson heat had mad drama. Gaping holes spitting from deep behind the rocks (no Google) were waiting to be stuffed by J-Parko. But it was Griff who proved to be the rarest of all phenomena: a fully formed rookie. He had the strategy elasticity to lash the wider sections with an abundance of repertoire and then out Parko Parko when he bomb-dropped into a bulbous keg and slithered out a tiny foamy hole at the top. If Team Parko review the tape honestly they might revise retirement plans. There is a world of pain ahead in those match-ups for Parko. For real.

My notes go squiffy here, sometime after noon. Coronas were making me see double, the Queensland sun cooked my brain but I think I had fully flip-flopped on the Slater position by then. The sport is fine without him. It’s just the dead wood of round two that distorted perspective.

Fanning’s last heat was odd, to the max. Like Medina, a small crowd gathered around him as he prepared. The mood amongst the crowd was tense and expectant. Fanning rocked off, people pushed closer to the sea. The webcast gave almost zero indication of the crazy energy focussing on Snapper Rocks.

But it wasn’t Mick who harnessed it. The big O grabbed the heat by the neck like a pitbull and just savaged it. From a close vantage point it looked very committed and big surfing.Mick struggled, got a legrope tangled around his feet, stumbled, couldn’t find a deep tube and in the end went out with a whimper. Fanning. Out!

The crowd gathered, waiting to pay their respects. But Mick went around the back of the main WSL structure and never re-appeared. A strange feeling came over the crowd. Was that it? It ends like this?

Filipe’s first ride passed in this strange, respectful silence. The great Mick Fanning had just surfed his last heat at Snapper, something should be happening. Some ceremony to commemorate the occasion. Not just business as usual.

But nothing did and on Filipe’s second wave, about which my notes read: Say fucking what?! wrt some piece of outrageous showmanship, maybe the tweaked club sandwich, the crowd erupted and Mick was……..was forgotten. Terrible to say, but true. Finally judges saw what they wanted to see and Toledo started strafing the scoreboard with 8’s and 9’s.

By chance, I saw a line of people stretched down the street down near McDonalds Greenmount. Families clutching posters mostly and there, wearing dark shades, Michael Fanning, an angel to all was discharging his duties as a World Champion surfer, apparently, as far as I could see, with great distinction.

Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Round 3 Results:
Heat 1: Owen Wright (AUS) 14.50 def. Willian Cardoso (BRA) 9.04
Heat 2: Mick Fanning (AUS) 11.67 def. Conner Coffin (USA) 7.37
Heat 3: Tomas Hermes (BRA) 12.40 def. Kolohe Andino (USA) 9.60.
Heat 4: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 14.60 def. Italo Ferreira (BRA) 13.70
Heat 5: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 13.36 def. Jeremy Flores (FRA) 13.10
Heat 6: Mikey Wright (AUS) 16.07 def. Gabriel Medina (BRA) 14.90
Heat 7: Julian Wilson (AUS) 7.30 def. Michael February (ZAF) 7.10
Heat 8: Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 15.26 def. Frederico Morais (PRT) 11.10
Heat 9: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 13.50 def. Joel Parkinson (AUS) 12.94
Heat 10: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 15.07 def. Wade Carmichael (AUS) 13.60
Heat 11: Michel Bourez (PYF) 12.50 def. Connor O’Leary (AUS) 6.43
Heat 12: Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 15.00 def. Jordy Smith (ZAF) 14.40

Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Round 4 Results:
Heat 1: Owen Wright (AUS) 17.00, Tomas Hermes (BRA) 11.20, Mick Fanning (AUS) 10.43
Heat 2: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 15.70, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 14.60, Mikey Wright (AUS) 11.20
Heat 3: Julian Wilson (AUS) 15.97, Griffin Colapinto (USA) 13.83, Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 11.67
Heat 4: Michel Bourez (PYF) 13.97, Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 13.83, Adriano de Souza (BRA) 13.53

Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Quarterfinal Matchups:
QF 1: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Adrian Buchan (AUS)
QF 2: Filipe Toledo (BRA) vs. Tomas Hermes (BRA)
QF 3: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Michael Rodrigues (BRA)
QF 4: Michel Bourez (PYF) vs. Griffin Colapinto (USA)

Roxy Pro Gold Coast Semifinal Matchups:
Heat 1: Lakey Peterson (USA) vs. Malia Manuel (HAW)
Heat 2: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) vs. Keely Andrew (AUS)

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Rumor: Joel Parkinson to be dropped by ‘Bong!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Jack Freestone too! Off the books, allegedly, for 2019!

Joel Parkinson is not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time in his career. But here he is, allegedly, though he cannot say the terrain is entirely unfamiliar. He is on the Gold Coast right now, participating in the World Surf League’s 2018 kickoff and, by all accounts, surfing well. But a rumor just floating past my ears as I picked up dry cleaning that his relationship with Billabong will end in 2019. Stablemate Jack Freestone’s too.

And he has certainly watched many of his friends leave, or be left by, longtime sponsors. He watched Andy Irons’ younger brother Bruce and Volcom part ways. He watched Kelly Slater and Quiksilver go on without each other. And now, if the whisper is to be believed, it is his turn. Still a young man, by some accounts, but the product of a different generation.

He traveled in the course of his career from the meticulous to the slime, witnessing the Association of Surfing Professionals become the World Surf League along the way and winning one of their world champion trophies in 2012.

But what now? What happens when an arguably young man reaches the end?

Politics?

I’ve always thought Joel Parkinson had a bit of the statesman in him or at least since the first time I spoke with him on Oahu’s North Shore. His voice is uncharacteristically high though he can be easily understood. Bogan is a language as natural as human breath, I’ve come to find. It is a chipped tongue in which the endings fill up the pauses, covering those gaps and gaucheries of conversation that embarrass Americans and the British. It’s a language whose inertia has remained on the plus side. It’s a language in which the voice runs to all levels and Joel Parkinson’s voice mostly runs very high.

I cannot remember what we spoke about but my memory has him as a statesman. And if it is true that Billabong is indeed taking his contract off the books for 2019 then I hope he runs for Coolangatta city council. I think he would do well there. I think his star would rise and he would someday be elected Prime Minister.

If not politics then what? The Mad Hueys?

Let’s discuss Jack Freestone tomorrow.

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Eat beach grit spam!