Zeke Lau lays down hammer of the event…
How y’like the drip feed of Keramas? Me? Chinese water torture.
I’m on a fee not a day rate, probably like Strider, so more days = less money/day.
Note to intern surf writers: get the day rate and a per diem.
Things move fast in the surf world but remember back to the heady days of the Founders’ Cup and BeachGrit’s exhaustive coverage? Sure you do. D. Rielly, BeachGrit principal laid down the closing statement declaring the beachbreak contest was dead. Then Brazil jumped out of the grave declaring rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated etc etc.
Six heats a day before the wind kills it, four good ones and two duds, is hardly going to excite the Michelob and oxy-quaffers in Baton Rouge, let alone get Sophie’s juices flowing after the huge success of the CBS broadcast deal.
What if it’s the Indonesian reefbreak contest, a unicorn almost as magical as the non-surfing pro surfing fan, that is stillborn?
Six heats a day before the wind kills it, four good ones and two duds, is hardly going to excite the Michelob and oxy-quaffers in Baton Rouge, let alone get Sophie’s juices flowing after the huge success of the CBS broadcast deal.
Can you recall even further back to the days of the Oakley Pro Junior in Bali which morphed into the Oakley Classic, the 2013 CT event last held in Bali? The Pro Junior was held in October and featured two comp sites: Keramas and Canggu.
Did you know that Oakley were ready to ink a three-year deal to continue the Oakley Bali Pro but the new WSL played such hardball on the deal they walked? That is straight from the horse’s mouth, from a high-level Oakley source.
The south-east trade blows straight into the right at Canggu and assuming the Euro hipsters are amenable to clearing the water it is one of the most conducive waves to huge aerials in the whole entire surfing world. Does it not make sense to follow that tried and true formula: run a half-dozen heats at Keramas in the morning and then spend an hour or two relocating to Canggu for another half-dozen at least heats in the arvo?
Did you also know, while we’re riffing on the subject, that Oakley were ready to ink a three-year deal to continue the Oakley Bali Pro but the new WSL played such hardball on the deal they walked? That is straight from the horse’s mouth, from a high-level Oakley source.
That leaves us with another truncated wrap of a short day. To wit:
Strider’s people reached out to me and told me how pumped he was on the props yesterday. Emboldened even. He came out like a Brahmin bull from the territory scrub, pawing the floor of the booth and snorting, disgusted that Fred and Ian Gouveia were sitting too deep on the reef to start the day. He heaped faint praise on Fred’s very meat and potatoes surfing and was very disgruntled that the rodeo flip he’d predicted Gouevia would pull did not come to pass in light onshore but rippable bowls.
Wilko looked like a mate of mine, Bali veteran, who every afternoon would visit a salon where he would partake of enhanced oxygen therapy (it is a thing), a massage with happy ending and then come bounding into the bar like a kangaroo with a fire cracker up its Jap’s eye.
Wilko went ballistic. Combo-ed Duru and Strider was so on fire with the call he sent Duru into the deep freeze with half a heat to go, like a euthanizsed lobster. Wilko looked like a mate of mine, Bali veteran, who every afternoon would visit a salon where he would partake of enhanced oxygen therapy (it is a thing), a massage with happy ending and then come bounding into the bar like a kangaroo with a fire cracker up its Jap’s eye. I do not condone that mode of being. Merely note its effects.
Mendes and Kanoa surfed a good heat. Fun to watch, tight. With Mendes surfing faster and more explosively than Igarashi to take the win.
A light offshore magically appeared in the next heat between Zeke and Patty Gudang. The waves went dreamy and buttery, sun out. The more I see of Pat the more I hear AM Radio: too much static, too much treble. Not enough bass.
Zeke laid down the biggest hammer of the event, a huge layback gouge that is the one thing worth your time searching for in the Heat Analyzer and it was all over. The rest of the heat was like watching a python strangle a rat. A very clear power imbalance.
M-Rod and Dora both took to the skies with low make rates, though Dora did stick one nice air which the judges correctly deemed not enough.
Hermes beat Connor O’Leary with QS surfing. Praise be to God.
I guess we will rinse and repeat tomorrow.
Corona Bali Protected Remaining Men’s Round 2 Results:
Heat 7: Frederico Morais (PRT) 12.07 def. Ian Gouveia (BRA) 8.43
Heat 8: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 14.94 def. Joan Duru (FRA) 7.00
Heat 9: Jesse Mendes (BRA) 12.33 def. Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 10.56
Heat 10: Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 15.57 def. Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 8.67
Heat 11: Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 11.40 def. Yago Dora (BRA) 11.27
Heat 12: Tomas Hermes (BRA) 12.66 def. Connor O’Leary (AUS) 11.34
Corona Bali Protected Men’s Round 3 Matchups:
Heat 1: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Jesse Mendes (BRA)
Heat 2: Michel Bourez (PYF) vs. Ezekiel Lau (HAW)
Heat 3: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Willian Cardoso (BRA)
Heat 4: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Michael Rodrigues (BRA)
Heat 5: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) vs. Griffin Colapinto (USA)
Heat 6: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Mikey Wright (AUS)
Heat 7: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Michael February (ZAF)
Heat 8: Frederico Morais (PRT) vs. Jeremy Flores (FRA)
Heat 9: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Conner Coffin (USA)
Heat 10: Italo Ferreira (BRA) vs. Tomas Hermes (BRA)
Heat 11: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Joel Parkinson (AUS)
I spent a winter with Eddie Akaui once.
It’s clear BG writers get paid by how many hyperlinks they add into their stories, not fee or day rates.
Is that what they are called? Should I ask for points?
It’s the one thing I learnt in my 8th grade HTML class
it already effectively is a contest — bros are out there tryna get good clips and photos for their sponsors, right? so there’s no prize money, necessarily, but there is money at stake. idk. i like the all-comers surf it if you can vibe. organization is overrated.
Beware, Euro hipsters are the new Brazilian storm…
And then all the other people couldn’t surf it at will because there would be a contest on.
Mind you they’re ALL spono’d fuckers anyway.
Does the Big Wave World Tour still exist? We all know the ‘CT guys don’t have the sack for big Tavi (we have the video) but wtf is the point of a Big Wave World Tour if they can’t get the job done for an all-time swell. This is why the BWWT is destined to die.
[The more I see of Pat the more I hear AM Radio: too much static, too much treble. Not enough bass. ]
Mark Twain
the short days are slaying me. i think, oh hey, let’s watch some surfing. oh. it’s already the post-event show. boo. oh hey, let’s see if there’s replays. oh. they’re not up yet. this is a hard contest to watch, is what i’m saying.
Why did they take away our ability to press play and drag the bar back into the first heats? I don’t understand.
Why is Zika Lau’s round 2 heat with wassisface the only one you can’t replay?
Odd.
Or freestone v Smith 2016 Rio Pro
Or Wilkinson v O’Leary 2017 Fiji Pro final ,
Which are both available on YouTube ?
Yeah yeah, but why is it the only one on the actual WSL app/site you can’t replay?
I just find it odd.
The above 2 heats are examples of heats which are not available on the WSL web app/site but elsewhere on wsl YouTube ?
Ramon Navarro should be wearing that yellow jeep jersey.
Nah he’ll be having a lot more fun avoiding the whole shitshow.
Imagine hey. Imagine a sport that couldn’t be bought or sold. Cheese rolling. The Annual Cheese Rolling Event was held in Gloucestershire yesterday and was far more entertaining than this. Only Fiji beats it. Keramas doesn’t. Pool waves don’t. Brazil didn’t. And so far nobody has been able to buy it. They tried once. Death threats ensued.
Cheese rolling has clumsy carnage! Of course it’s more entertaining
Excuse me mister. Every tumble is perfectly strategically executed there is nothing clumsy about it. Those humans are athletes.
Must be an some kind of artificial hill they train on
im pretty sure kelly built one in texas or something.
1. Zeke’s turn is my favourite of the whole year.
2. There is no way Strider has “People”. Imaginary magic elves that he’s cooked up in his mindtank, maybe. But not People.
And a third thing – intern surf writer? That would suggest careers, professionalism, scope for progression and ladder climbing etc…
didn’t you listen to the infamous table jumping podcast, it was all in there.
Strider’s people’s letter read suspiciously like how Strider writes…
I haven’t taken much notice of Zeke’s surfing until now. That fucken turn is worth watching more than once. Jebus!
I was really hoping he would be humiliated by Gudauskas.
Then he could quietly shelve that gangsta clip bullshit.
Then Zeke went to his room, tucked his mong head between his thighs and sucked the venom out of his own python.
he’s gonna win this thing Wiggs then what will you do?
Call him a fuckwit?
idk. Medina might have gotten the easiest Round 3 ever.
You must admit that would a enviable talent when lonely.
“There was a young man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
“If my ear was a cunt I would fuck it.”
Now, if the bible was full of this sort of deep wisdom I would be fully down with it.
Derek and I gently parried about the wind at Keramas during this time of year when the comp was first announced. Seems he might have been a little wrong and I may have been a little right. Just sayin’.
We did? Did I say, light offshore in the morning, freshening onshore in the afternoon?
I think I posted some rubbish about the wind being wrong in June and you said it was OK until the trades kicked in later in the morning. Maybe we are both a little bit wrong and a little bit right 😉
Am I the only vaguely engaged fan that’s annoyed at how slow the WSL operation is to get the waves tagged and into the heat analyser? Its not like they’re distracted by spending all day running the comp.
And here’s something you might find interesting, given it’s in a similar vein. At the end of each day, the WSL emails a link for a selection of around a dozen surf photos for media outlets to run. Today there was one move worth everyone’s time. It ain’t on there. I’m not sure why. The shot on this story came from a screen grab.
Are the admin team all hitting the bintangs early and phoning it in?
as if you wouldn’t get on the bins and disappear until 9am the next morning?!
Their social media person is also shit.
ha, the same person they made such a big deal about hiring.
The Internet in Bali is shithouse, will be the same for Ulu’s.
How about having the heat draw not show scores without asking for them?
do you like to be surprised by the sub 10 heat totals?
I don’t like the participation trophy option.
You would be brave to gamble a transit of 2 hours from Keramas to Canggu on most days. Canggu it should be. Does Luke Egan and his Commune resort have that much pull?
easier than getting to the Bukit.
What the fuck did jebus invent Chinook helicopters for then?
2 hour commute my fanny.
Shit, hire a Mil Mi-26 and get er done in 1 trip.
Pretty easy to buy some police to escort you
Check his backers, and local partners,that will shed light on your naive question.
This Longtom guy is a better writer than all those guys at Stab, except by my mate Rory
Without the emotional frigidity!
The difference between Americans and Australians?
Nobody’s perfect. Maybe James B.
You have become them.
The whole event is about as interesting as watching said python lay a turd after eating that rat!!! Absolutely no fucking momentum at all. Almost, almost making the wavepool look better!!!