Read: The introduction to Cocaine + Surfing!

Drugs are horrible but funny and surfing is amazing but pointless!

There are few people more important to surfing than Matt Warshaw. He has, single handedly, decided to take the past, present and future of our favorite activity and codify it for others and for all time. Oh sure the exhaustive entires, the factual information, the knowledge is important and valuable but what I love most is Matt’s tone. Matt’s tone is what people’s surf understanding will be. His tone is how surfing will be felt. And thus it was one of the greatest honors of my life to have him write the introduction to Cocaine + Surfing. The book officially squirts into the world on June 12 and I have been begging for you to pre-order (America! Australia!) but discovered a secret a few days ago. You can get today on iBooks. In its entirety including Matt Warshaw’s introduction which I am posting below with tears in my eyes.

Here are two things to know before diving into Chas Smith’s remarkable Cocaine and Surfing: A Love Story.

Drugs are funny. Not always. Not often, in fact. But often enough. Like any other culturally attuned Baby Boomer, I learned this from Richard Pryor, who alchemized a raging drug habit into comic gold. Maybe you’ve heard of the Pryor-on-fire episode? After a five-day freebase bender in 1980, Pryor, hallucinating and hearing voices, poured a bottle of Bacardi 151 over his head, flicked his cigarette lighter, then ran flaming down his driveway and into the street. God himself was a Pryor fan, though, and Richard survived. Eighteen months later I was in a packed movie theater for the opening weekend of Pryor’s Live on Sunset Strip, and there he was onscreen, earlobes all waxy and scarred, reenacting a conversation between his drug-addled self and a menacingly calm-voiced base pipe-I won’t quote here; quoting Pryor never works-and while part of me knew the story was horrifying, like everybody else in the theater I was gasping and weeping and rocking back and forth with laughter.

Surfing is pointless. That’s the second thing. It is joyful and gorgeous and exciting and more, absolutely, in spades, and not pointless in the nihilistic way that drugs are pointless. But pointless enough. This was hard for me to accept. At age nine, riding waves became the maypole of my life, and everything else-school, career, travel, family, friends, love interests-would trail behind like so many fluttering ribbons. Surfing first, the rest second or third or whatever. I did that for 40 years. For a long time, it felt noble and serious and superior. Eventually I got married and had a son, demoted surfing to its rightful place below family, friends, career, and came to believe that surfing was simply a way of pleasuring yourself. A beautiful thing to do, healthy and compelling and of a far higher order of pleasure than what all of us think of when the phrase “pleasuring yourself” is used. I would argue in fact that surfing is indeed “a most supreme pleasure” as Captain Cook (or his ghostwriter) put it centuries ago. I would go even further and say that surfing is to sports-world pleasure what Richard Pryor is to comedy.

Isn’t that enough? For a totally non-productive act of self-pleasure, isn’t it enough that it be a very good type of self-pleasure, maybe the best of all? Apparently not. We want more. We want significance and weight.

And thus a tendency for the long-form examination of surfing (and many short-form takes as well) to overreach. To burden the sport with importance, to pair it thematically with all manner of greater meaning, up to and including enlightenment. A filmmaker called me last week to pitch a multi-part documentary series on surfing that would provide viewers with (his words) “a
a holistic examination of the human condition past, present, and future through the lens of international surf culture.” I don’t speak for all surfers. But my experience, and the experience of pretty much everyone I’ve surfed with over the the past 50 wonderful wave-filled years, is that we’re not doing anything constructive, much less enlightening, out there. We are mostly practicing. Because, wow, this is a hard sport. We are trying to do it right for just a few seconds in a row. We unwind a little afterwards, if things go well. But just as often we end up frustrated, sometimes horribly so. Because, and I mean seriously, it is a really fuck-off hard sport.
I would devour a book on surfing and frustration with the same single-mindedness I give to avoiding books on surfing and enlightenment.

But for now we have Cocaine and Surfing, which, now that I think about it, is actually a much better fit, book-wise, than frustration and surfing.

Nobody but Chas Smith could have pulled off Cocaine and Surfing. His comedic chops, for starters, are unequaled in the world of surf, and not just in 2018, but for all time. More importantly, he understands, to the finest degree, that drugs are horrible but funny and surfing is amazing but pointless. Which makes Cocaine and Surfing a high-wire act. Comedy leads, but other, darker elements are present at all times. There are shadows behind the laughter. You get that from the opening pages, as two nameless gacked-out pro surfers wrestle in Chas’ car while he chauffeurs them to a club in Huntington Beach, half amused and half pissed off. It is a three-page comic riff, but with an aftertaste of sadness, as you realize that both surfers are destined for a ten-year hangover, and very likely a depressed middle age. Hilarity cut with pain and sadness and anger. It’s a hard mix to get right. Incredibly hard. You bring Pryor-grade skills to the table when you sit down and write a book like this, in other words, or you burn the first draft and go back to bitchy three-paragraph blog posts about world tour judging system.

Back to the anger for a moment, because anger is the secret power of Cocaine and Surfing, as it is for nearly all of Chas Smith’s work. The sport may be amazing and pointless to him, but it is also dear, and personal in the way that all obsessions are personal. Something worth protecting. Chas watches as our once-undomesticated sport is yoked and dragged from the cultural outback to a bland commons area filled with committee-designed surfwear and bloodless journalism and drone-like pros who, after a close loss, rather than impaling their boards on the nearest fence post and storming off the beach, smile gamely into the camera and say their opponent surfed great, that it’s all a learning experience, that they’re looking forward to the next event. All of this makes Chas angry. The blandness, yes. But mostly the hypocrisy. The sport’s own self-betrayal. We should know better-we used to know better-than to try and reshape surfing into a sport that fits into a Mutual of Omaha ad campaign, or an Olympic telecast. Selling the sport isn’t a crime. But sell it on our own terms, the way Bruce Brown did with Endless Summer. Make them come to us. And if they don’t, so what? But no, we continue slicing off our legacy of cool, of independence, piece by piece, in exchange for a seat in the nose-bleed section of mainstream culture. Then we compound the error (not “we,” actually, but the World Surf League, the NYSE-traded surfwear companies, and whoever convinced the IOC to make surfing an Olympic sport for the 2020 games in Tokyo) by passing off this auto-swindle as growth and progress.

That’s where Chas’ anger comes from. And if you follow his work-mostly on the BeachGrit website, but also in his excellent first book Welcome to Paradise, Now Go To Hell-you already know the glory of an angry Chas Smith: the dandified scarecrow in worn Louis Vuitton drivers and a flawless Dior shirt, pirouetting his way across beaches and boardrooms and party halls in a weaponized good mood, encouraging us to laugh both at him and with him as he delivers one loafer-shod kick after the other to the sternum of any person or entity who would further chip away at whatever free-range soul surfing has left.

In other words, for all the comedy and pointlessness I’ve talked about here vis-à-vis drugs and surf, and Cocaine and Surfing, there are stakes on the table. There are risks involved. For drug users, of course. But drug use can be can be temporary. Reversals are possible. Today’s bent coke-out surfer might be straight and redeemed tomorrow. The stakes for surfing, however, in terms of its identity-the way the sport presents and views itself-are also high, but not reversible. Barring some kind of apocalyptic global socio-industrial meltdown, a fully tamed and enfranchised and corporate-friendly version of surfing will never gain back what it lost.

Do I think this book will halt, or even slow, our slide into a broader, safer, blander age?

No. I do not. But Cocaine and Surfing is truthful and smart, and very very funny, and when I laugh it hurts less.

Buy in its entirety here!


Introducing: Ross Williams’ inflection point!

He alone will either make or break the greatest ever theoretical surfer!

Remember when, two plus years ago and after winning his first world title, John John Florence announced to the world that he would be taking Ross Williams out of the World Surf League announcer booth and set him up alone on a bench with big sunglasses covering his face to be coach? I do. I remember it well and remember the correlating emotional response of “Why?” If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Right?

Well, John John won his second title the very next year and was it because he is the best surfer in the world or because Ross fiddled with the inputs and outputs and coached really well? We had absolutely no way of knowing.

No way of knowing until this year. Students of the game are aware that John John Florence, after losing to Jesse Mendes in Bali is mired in the high teens. And let us read Longtom’s analysis of his heat, and Ross’s reaction to it, here.

Is there anything sadder than watching John Florence surfing this year? Yes… watching Ross Williams watch John write another chapter in his 2018 novella Anatomy of a Bad Heat. Kaipo cornered Ross for a quick interview and it was one of the most painful broadcast moments in world sport. Ross stumbling and mumbling platitudes that fall from his mouth like wet ashes. Platitudes that he has obviously stopped believing in but there is nowhere else to go.

In this chapter, John started weakly with a desultory opening ride, then a non-make. A couple of clean makes in perfect head-high surf saw him sitting on a heat score of 11.97. Jesse Mendes needing a a five-something with three minutes holding priority. The wave came, he launched a lofted tail-high backside rotation and nailed the score. John head down looked as emasculated as a sterilised lion. His head is a mess. Ross, get your man out and claim an injury wildcard for next year. Get him out by any means necessary.

Brilliant but more importantly brings us to a very important inflection point in the John John Florence and Ross Williams saga. One that I’ve been waiting for. For I believe from this moment on we will have clarity as to the importance and value of coaching.

If:

John John continues to flail this year and gets out of the gates slowly next etc. I think we can lay all blame at the feet of Ross Williams. We can say that he took the world’s greatest theoretical surfer and destroyed him and wrecked him and dragged his carcass along the coral heads.

John John finds a way out of this slump and wins some events and starts next year hotter than a fever with world title number three buzzing I think we can lay all praise at the feet of Ross Williams. We can say he rescued the world’s greatest theoretical surfer from a life of Dane and elevated him to his rightful place amongst competitive professionals.

Right?

If you were Ross Williams would you like these scenarios, either all blame or all credit? Well, it takes money to make money, baby.


Griffin Colapinto Keramas
Colapinto stayed in the heat but looked slightly outclassed and over-powered despite a bigger hi-fi game. It was the best heat of the year. Griff needed something big and found a loft, lots of loft in a tail-high, no-grab reverse. The landing was trick, the recovery insane and clean. Judges had to pay it big and they did. Griff spent the rest of the heat camped on Wilko with an annoying smirk on his dial. That would have been painful. | Photo: WSL/Ed Sloane

Day 4, Keramas: “Nutty, almost incomprehensible!”

The longest sustained run of good heats and excellent surfing the WSL has put on this year.

Y’cut off a slice of that action today? Blew it, if not. Best day of the year for WSL heats. The first non-weird day of high-performance surfing in sick waves.

Actually there was one thing weird. V. much so. Have you noticed, in the booth, the face of ’89 World Champ Martin Potter? Smooth as a baby’s bum, right. Not a wrinkle, not a line to be seen. 

What’s the scoop Pottz? Few little sneaky botox injections during those long, lingering afternoons after the trades get up? You wouldn’t be the first. No, not me. My mate who loves the happy endings. Terrible business. 

Kaipo cornered Ross for a quick interview and it was one of the most painful broadcast moments in world sport. Ross stumbling and mumbling platitudes that fall from his mouth like wet ashes. Platitudes that he has obviously stopped believing in but there is nowhere else to go.

Is there anything sadder than watching John Florence surfing this year? Yes… watching Ross Williams watch John write another chapter in his 2018 novella Anatomy of a Bad Heat. Kaipo cornered Ross for a quick interview and it was one of the most painful broadcast moments in world sport. Ross stumbling and mumbling platitudes that fall from his mouth like wet ashes. Platitudes that he has obviously stopped believing in but there is nowhere else to go.

In this chapter, John started weakly with a desultory opening ride, then a non-make. A couple of clean makes in perfect head-high surf saw him sitting on a heat score of 11.97. Jesse Mendes needing a a five-something with three minutes holding priority. The wave came, he launched a lofted tail-high backside rotation and nailed the score. John head down looked as emasculated as a sterilised lion. His head is a mess. Ross, get your man out and claim an injury wildcard for next year. Get him out by any means necessary.

What followed was the longest sustained run of good heats and excellent surfing the WSL has put on this year. No distractions, no comparisons to epic surf elsewhere. Clean air finally for an organisation and CEO that must this year be wondering who is sticking the needles into the voodoo doll. 

Bourez ripped the tops of waves off and sent star trails into the heavens. Zeke came back and took the lead and Bourez took it back, emphatically. Every wave was a showcase. 

Owen and Cardoso was a minor letdown by comparison with Cardoso finishing just on top. 

Wilko went ballistic mk2. No delay, no bobble off the bottom turn. Every top turn perfectly sculpted and framed. Judges low-balled his second wave by a point-and-half at least, then highballed the next one to compensate.

Colapinto stayed in the heat but looked slightly outclassed and over-powered despite a bigger hi-fi game. It was the best heat of the year. Griff needed something big and found a loft, lots of loft in a tail-high, no-grab reverse. The landing was trick, the recovery insane and clean. Judges had to pay it big and they did. Griff spent the rest of the heat camped on Wilko with an annoying smirk on his dial. That would have been painful.

The big heats rolled on. Mikey v Julian. Each winning heat from Mikey looks the same: a big opening wave exerting maximum pressure and a strong follow up. Each losing heat likewise shares a certain symmetry. This was one was different. It was Julian who skipped out to an early lead and Mikey who was quiet and then under pressure. 

The heat turned as Mikey sold J-Dub on two dud waves to get priority. A long flat spell ensued. Julian paddled right up the reef. Why? A simple strategic error. Wouldn’t you sit on your man and induce maximum pressure with each decision? Make him think. With space Mikey needed a 5.23 and surfed a minor set into oblivion for the score. There was No claim. Julian fell on a heat-winning ride behind. In Kaipo’s presser shown after the comp ended, Julian again seemed not to have an understanding on why he lost, how he lost. You can’t win a world title losing a heat at perfect head-high Keramas. 

That lanky, no-power style of February’s is just not going to cut it on the CT. Which means go hi-fi or go home. There is literally no other option. He’s not the only surfer in that boat.

There were some obvious mismatches and these went to the “house”, as expected. Medina/February was the most brutal mismatch. Medina laid on a vulgar display of power, taking the Wilko no bobble backside line and adding extra power and aggression to it. It was insane, a rare example of what pro surfing can be. Despite not finishing a wave properly Medina did not get a glove laid on him by February. That lanky, no-power style is just not going to cut it on the CT. Which means go hi-fi or go home. There is literally no other option. He’s not the only surfer in that boat. 

Remember the old Modern Collective days, when Jordy and Dane were going to save us all from the mind-numbing threat of conservative surfing and deliver us a rivalry bigger and better than AI/Slater?

Except it never happened.

Jordy/Filipe Final in head-high Keramas has the potential to be the best surfing the WSL has ever seen.

Jordy retreated into safety surfing and here we are a decade later wondering when the fuck Jordy was going to bring the noise. He got half the band back together today. His half, but playing the Mod Coll bangers. The endless turn angles and repertoire, the violent direction changes and silky transitions. All there. Good as ever. Jordy/Filipe Final in head-high Keramas has the potential to be the best surfing the WSL has ever seen.

Will we get it? 

Italo/Hermes was another mismatch with Italo blasting and just falling on a bunch of aerial interpretations, shuv-its and super-whipped rotations among them. It was superlative entertainment. 

De Souza reminded of that cartoon character, Yosemite Sam: running around crazy firing at will on anything. Too much energy, too much zest and variety and spark for Parko, who pushed too hard off the bottom and lacked pop on a day when above-the-lip surfing, even if not made, was a requirement to progress. 

That led to the final heat of the day and the most monumental mismatch. Toledo v Asing. Filipe’s opening ride was nutty, almost incomprehensible. His next three waves were under-scored. Airs, a clean club sandwich. A couple of huge attempts not quite greased. A light onshore crumble made it almost perfect for an advanced attack.

Strider spent the heat telling us about Asing’s legendary huge heart and spirit. Which made me ask: fine, but where is the strategy? Throwing threes and fours in the most rippable head-high reef on the planet is guaranteed to be a losing game. Why not swing? Save the neat little combos for another day. Throw something up there and see what happens. But alas, my entreaties went unanswered and the plucky little fighter will not live to fight on. 

There seems to be a knowledge gap at the highest level of Pro Surfing, some failure to understand that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a form of madness. 

Never mind. Great day. Twelve heats. About as much as a gal can stand. Someone out of Medina, Italo and Toledo will be world champ this year.

Book it.

Corona Bali Protected Men’s Round 3 Results:
Heat 1: Jesse Mendes (BRA) 13.34 def. John John Florence (HAW) 11.37
Heat 2: Michel Bourez (PYF) 15.17 def. Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 12.97
Heat 3: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 12.00 def. Owen Wright (AUS) 10.37
Heat 4: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 11.40 def. Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 8.83
Heat 5: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 15.84 def. Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 15.40
Heat 6: Mikey Wright (AUS) 12.27 def. Julian Wilson (AUS) 11.83
Heat 7: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 15.70 def. Michael February (ZAF) 9.44
Heat 8: Jeremy Flores (FRA) 16.04 def. Frederico Morais (PRT) 13.50
Heat 9: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 16.36 def. Conner Coffin (USA) 9.00
Heat 10: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 14.30 def. Tomas Hermes (BRA) 10.10
Heat 11: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 14.13 def. Joel Parkinson (AUS) 13.46
Heat 12: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 14.43 def. Keanu Asing (HAW) 8.43

Corona Bali Protected Men’s Round 4 Matchups:
Heat 1: Jesse Mendes (BRA) vs. Michel Bourez (PYF) vs. Willian Cardoso (BRA)
Heat 2: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Griffin Colapinto (USA) vs. Mikey Wright (AUS)
Heat 3: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Jordy Smith (ZAF)
Heat 4: Italo Ferreira (BRA) vs. Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Filipe Toledo (BRA)


creed noa
Do you miss the sexiness of middle fingers pointing north? Here, Creed McTaggart, left, and Noa Deane, brilliant, ever so brilliant, but where did they go? | Photo: @whatyouth/nate lawrence

Who Killed Craig, Creed, Noa and Dane?

Do you miss their romance? Their sexy?

I’m torn. Because there are definitely two (and probably more) ways to look at this depending on your level of fandom for these dudes. But I feel like we haven’t seen them in a while and that is significant.

And I know, I know, buncha fuckin’ hipster surfers etc, but, seriously, where’d they go? 

Let’s begin by looking at what they were doing last we checked: 

Dane Reynolds: Started Former, put out Premium Violence, and added twins to the family. OK, Dane’s busy — and it’s usually when you start to really miss him that he drops an “excerpt”-level vid out of nowhere and we remember him all over again and beg him to compete or something. Please let that be the case, minus the compete.    

Noa Deane: Last time I saw Noa he was on the deck at the Volcom Pipe house, soaking wet and fresh out of surfing third or fourth or fifth reef Pipe (it was huge) with the core of the core on the North Shore. He was right there, trading stories with “The Boys” over a Stella — showing the world in his nonchalant manner that he’s more than just a punk kid with a middle finger. There was no media there to document this, but I saw. He was earning it. Oh, and that deck hangout came after he beat John John that morning in maxing and hectic second reef Pipe at the Volcom Pipe Pro where he went on to make the semis in what was very good Pipeline the whole way through. Is Volcom holding? Hopefully…  

Mitch ColebornSince most his sponsors stopped paying photo incentives for magazines, Mitch continues trying to qualify. He gets a great spot at the Volcom House in Hawaii and when it’s good there, that’s good and he’s good. Otherwise, you can still find him doing some of the best straight airs to the side of most WQS contest areas and living in California. And should he get on tour, the waves there will allow him to thrive. Oh, and should the right filmmaker come along: Mitch absolutely has another hammer of a section in him.

Dion Agius: Dion is officially a Tasmanian Devil after buying some beautiful land on his home island state of Tassie. He still has his hands in several brands (Epokhe and a sig line at Globe etc) and and he’s always around the prettiest of girls. I’ve also heard whispers of him producing a new Nti Sheeto film if the resources can be found (I hope they are!). But until then, I picture him on his Tasmanian porch, drinking coffee and talking to Joe G in the morning, and drinking wine and talking to Kai Neville in the evening. Something will come of those chats, right? Of course they will. 

Brendon Gibbens: In recent times, like Dill and Beeg era times, Brendon would hang out for long periods of time in the British Airways Lounge at London Heathrow, using it as a hub for dismount to Portugal, or Mexico, or Indo, or back home to SA to bag clips. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was dancing. Like authentically dancing. I have to assume that hasn’t changed. Please tell me that hasn’t changed. Dill and Beeg II, coming any second, right? 

Craig Anderson: Last I heard Craig was camping in a van somewhere in Ireland with a bunch of boogie-boarders, hunting slabs like the humble mad hipster he is. Proof he’s more than a knee-knock highline and may have been, in fact, born too late.   

Creed McTaggart: Well, Creed is in a rock band, partner in an Australian grip brand (RAGE) and I think he shows up to Billabong shoots if they bring Iggy Pop. So that’s pretty cool. 

My takeaway from this short update: These dudes are actually doing stuff (rad stuff even), but ever since the surf industry decided to police itself, then acquire itself, and then sell itself for likes and views and basically go upside down and over the falls like that shark in the barrel on Instagram, these dudes don’t have a whole lot of outlets to be seen on.

And with every brand acting as its own media company, when we do see them, we only get commercials, not parts, or films, or interesting interviews or stories. 

Now, keep in mind: I am a hard-core surf romantic. I am emotional with my surfing and surf videos and surf photos. And I have long been a loyal industry pawn because of this.

But in return I expect vids and romance back. With anticipation. Characters. Emotion. Style. Zest. Moxie. Fun. And it should be set to a good fucking song. But most of these elements have become extinct and diluted from the once intoxicating surf world.

And those were the places where we usually put guys like Dane, Craig, Noa and Creed. They were the polarizing romantics and they made surfing sexy and strange and unique. Now, the most “exciting” places we can go in surf are the comment sections. And I’ve never gotten jazzed on much of anything in there. And I’ve definitely never gotten buzzed up enough to go surf from them. 

Perhaps I’m getting older and realizing Santa Claus just aint real and I should just go get insurance or something, but I can’t. I actually love(d) the surf industry.

I have boxes of VHS’ and DVD’s and magazines that contain the stoke of my adolescence and beyond. Every good (and shitty) surf I’ve ever had was sparked and made better by the contents of those boxes. And I still get supercharged when I hear a song come on from a favorite surf vid. And this is why I used to shell out much more than I earned on surf shit. Boards. Vids ($29.99 a pop!). Wetties. Grip. Wax. And every flavor of t-shirt and trunks there was. All because it made me fucking psyched, and if I’m going to support it, I need to be fucking psyched. And currently, I rarely know where to turn to get those feelings. 

Which proves to me that something is wrong and it might start here with these missing characters. But maybe that’s selfish of me. Maybe those dudes are doing what I supported all along and are now some of the best in the world at being actual freesurfers. And that’s punk in its own way.

But I can’t believe that entirely, because I need them and the romance and stoke they bring. I need a boned-out slob by any of those four above. I need the yin to the WSL yang, so we can get T&C Surf Designs out of Tilly’s and Pac Sun and back where it belongs: as a sticker placed unironically on our walls that makes us stoked enough when we see it to want a T&C tee to go with our new Glenn Pang shape. 

And for all that we need Dane, Creed, Craig and Noa all over our phones and computers and TVs…set to a damn good song getting us psyched.

Otherwise, we don’t deserve them and we should set them free. 


Olympics: Jordy Smith left out in the cold!

And other fascinating Olympic surf scenarios!

Okay, we’re not going to the Olympics, but some surfers are going! Forty, to be exact. It’s going to be so exciting. I am the kind of person who reads Olympic qualification rules. This is my confession.

The US Olympic Trials event is widely considered the fastest swim meet in the world. Held ahead of the summer games, the trials meet decides the US Olympic team. The top two finishers in each event go to the Olympics. Everyone else goes home. There are tears of elation and crushing disappointments. It’s all very high drama.

If you were hoping for a similarly tear-filled dénouement for surfing, you will be disappointed. Sorry! But the selection process does guarantee some excellent subplots for the 2019 CT events. Spicy!

Here’s your handy guide to surfing’s Olympic selection, so you can impress your friends with your arcane knowledge. You can actually like a pro in the parking lot next weekend. Friends always enjoy that kind of thing.

Details!

First, some details. Twenty women and twenty men comprise the Olympic field in Tokyo. Each national committee may send a maximum of two men and two women. That’s a team of four total, if you’re trying to keep track at home. Thankfully, there is no complicated math by which countries receive different allocations based on their standings in the world rankings. (Hi, cycling) Four. You get four.

If you want to surf the Olympics, you must also surf the 2019 and 2020 World Surfing Games. Qualifying standards for the World Games appear to be still under construction. I did not see them, in any case. Maybe I did not look hard enough.

World Tour Spice!

The selection process begins with the 2019 CT standings. Fuck yeah! Now, we’re getting somewhere.

The first ten men — and the first eight women — in the CT rankings in December 2019 go to the Olympics. That sounds simple, but remember the part where each country may only send two surfers? If you’re from the US, Australia, or Brazil, you’ll need to be among the top two ranked surfers from your country on the CT. This is where the fun begins.

Let’s pretend that the women’s Olympic selection were right now, today. Steph Gilmore and Nikki Van Dijk would represent Australia. Two-time world champion Tyler Wright would be left out in the cold. Tati West snags one of Brazil’s two slots, while Silvana needs to keep an eye on her overall ranking to stay inside the selection window. I’m sure Silvana was stoked to welcome her new… teammate.

For the US team, meanwhile, Lakey Peterson and Carissa Moore would take the honors, but Caroline Marks is oh-so-close to overtaking Moore. The joint marketing from Red Bull of Moore and Marks gets a little extra zesty in this context.

The plot thickens significantly for the US team if Courtney Conlogue reclimbs the rankings after her recent injury. Or if Malia Manuel were to make a sudden run up the rankings. At the moment, the judges look to love what Lakey’s selling, but if that changed, the door might just swing open.

On the men’s side of the draw, the three-way battle among the Brazilians Filipe Toledo, Italo Ferreira, and Gabriel Medina is going to be lit as fuck. If it were up to me, I’d say send all three. But I don’t make the rules around here.

The US selection, based on current rankings, would be Zeke Lau and Griffin Colapinto, with Kolohe Andino breathing down Colapinto’s neck. Florence is ranked fourth among the Americans at the moment, which isn’t exactly where he’s going to want to be next December. Surely, there’s an Olympics bonus in his contract.

Now pretend you’re Jordy Smith. You’re psyched, because you don’t have to worry about beating out three other guys from South Africa. But you still have some work to do. Because only ten men receive selection from the CT, Jordy Smith would miss qualifying based on current rankings. The ten slots available from the CT are exhausted before we’d reach his ranking, which is currently tied for 25th. Bummer, dude.

But Smith is not out of luck! He could still qualify without climbing the pesky CT rankings. Read on, for how!

Second chances!

Four slots for men — and six for women — are on offer to the top finishers in the 2020 ISA World Surfing Games. So if Jordy were to finish in the top four at the World Games, he could still qualify, even if he were outside the CT selection window. This is also a potential qualifying route for women such as Silvana, Pauline Ado, or Bianca Buitendang.

If your country has already exhausted its allocation on the CT — like say, the US or Australia — you can’t qualify by way of the World Games. Basically, this is the route for QS and lower-ranked CT surfers whose countries have not yet qualified two athletes.

Continents!

Continents, we have them. They number five.

One surfer from each of the five continents will be eligible for Olympic selection. Who will it be? The highest finisher from each continent at the 2019 ISA World Surfing Games will qualify. For the Americas, the 2019 Pan-American Games serve as the selection event.

There’s a catch — they must finish with the top 30 overall at the World Games. So, no Jamaican bobsled action, basically.

Here again, the two-surfer quota per country comes into play. The qualifying standards form a hierarchy with the CT at the top. If a country qualifies two surfers through the CT rankings, that’s it! There are no other opportunities.

These additional qualifying routes offer a route for countries with fewer top level pro surfers to send athletes to the Olympics. Maybe there’ll be an upset! That could be fun times.

Locals Only!

Two surfers from Japan will be included in the event, if they do not qualify by any other route. If Kanoa Igarashi failed to qualify via the CT rankings, a high finish at the ISA Surfing World Games, or as a continental qualifier, he could still pick up the local ticket.

If Igarashi does qualify through the standard routes, the extra slot gets thrown to the ISA Surfing World Games and an additional athlete from the Games can qualify. So if you’re from a country without CT athletes, you’re definitely hoping Igarashi finishes high in the CT rankings.

There. You are all smarter now! You can impress your friends with all your knowledge. I confess that I love few things more than Olympic selection drama, so I will totally enjoy next year’s CT even more than usual. Maybe you will too!