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WSL Rankings: The Great White Nope!

Chas Smith

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American Exceptionalism continues to suffer!

We are, at this very moment, at the halfway mark of the World Surf League’s 2018 season and it has had something for almost everyone, don’t you agree? Something for those who love high performance, for those who love wild seas, for those who love sharky lineups and public relations disasters. Something for Australians and Brazilians and…. well, I guess there is nothing for continental North Americans.

Nothing at all.

The bummer was signaled at the beginning, when the World Surf League stripped continental North America of its only real event, the Hurley Pro there on the cobbled stone of Lower Trestles, and moved it inland to a place that can hardly be considered free or brave. A private Surf Ranch in unincorporated Lemoore.

Things went downhill from there.

Griff Colapinto surprised by making the quarters at Snapper and Pat Gudauskas chased that by making the semis at Bells but then the stumbles. Kolohe out in the quarters at Rio, Griff out in the quarters on Bali, Kolohe robbed in the semis at Ulus.

And where does this leave us?

I’ll tell you where. With the closest American to the crown waaaaaaaaay down in 12th looking up the baggier than necessary trunks of Ace Buchan, Michelle Rodriguez, Owen Wright, Jordy Smith, Mikey Wright, Michelle Bourez, Willian Cardoso, Gabe Medina, Italo Ferrari, Filipe Toledo and Julian Wilson.

John John Florence, who doesn’t count anyhow, is basically ready to drop off tour at 22nd and that’s it other than Connor Coffin at 16th.

Has the contiguous 48 ever begun so badly in the Common Era of Kelly Slater? I have to think no. I have to think this is the worst year ever.

But how does the future look? Do you think, someday, Kolohe has a title in him? What about Griff? Connor?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Bueller?

 

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Blood Feud: US Olympic Team Chooses Waco over Surf Ranch!

Derek Rielly

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The war for Olympic Surf Gold begins!

The war for Olympic glory has begun! Just as the Australian Olympic surf team shuts the gate on six-days of exclusive training sessions at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore, the US Team announces it has partnered with BSR Cable Park in Waco, Texas.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkgPdjFA0m1/?taken-by=usasurfing

From US Surfing’s press release,

San Clemente, California – (June 26, 2018) USA Surfing announced that BSR Surf Resort’s Waco, Texas wave pool will be the official wave pool for training the 2018 World Junior Championship Surf Team and the team selected to compete at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, when surfing makes its Olympic debut.  
 
USA Surfing CEO Greg Cruse said the wave pool is part of a comprehensive plan for optimal training that prepares athletes to take on the world’s best in beach break conditions. All three upcoming international competitions feature beach break conditions: the September 2018 ISA World Surfing Games in Tahara Japan, the October 2018 ISA World Junior Surfing Championships in Huntington Beach, and the Olympic Games 2020 at Tsurigasaki Beach in Chiba Japan.
 
“The technology allows repeat, made-to-order waves that are perfect for training,” Cruse said. “With the capacity to produce three waves per minute at 12-second intervals and different wave configuration at the push of a button from right point to left point to right point with a perfect air section, this wave offers USA Surf Teams the opportunity to train in an environment that closely mimics ocean conditions.” 

USA Surfing head coach Joey Buran said his World Junior Championship Surf Team is beyond stoked to be training in Waco, where U.S. Olympic surfing hopefuls will be training. The world junior championship team will be defending its world title at the 2018 ISA World Junior Surfing Championship held in Huntington Beach Oct. 27 – Nov. 4. Many of these athletes are strong prospects for U.S. Olympic Teams in 2024, 2028 and beyond. 
 
“BSR Surf Resort’s wave pool is ideal for honing maneuvers and aerial skills,” Buran said. “We are Team USA and our goal for this year’s 2018 ISA World Junior Surfing Championship Team is to have our best and be at our best when we compete against the world’s best in Huntington Beach in October and when surfing makes its 2020 debut in Tokyo.” 

Did US Surfing not get the memo that, likely, the Olympic people and the ISA will see reason, yield, and run the surfing component of the Games in the new Chiba pool, which is a Surf Ranch and not an American Wave Machines tank? 

Is all this lust for Olympic gold rather inhuman and undernourished?

Or just plain crazy and lots of fun?

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Winner: WSL unleashes most inappropriate headline ever!

Chas Smith

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And the award for Best Surf Writing goes to...

Can I shoot straight with you for one brief moment? It takes a lot to shock me these days. Aside from Stab laughing giddily at a poor boy who lost his penis and then his life there is almost nothing that turns my head. Click bait headlines have become such a commonplace component of all of our lives that I imagine it takes a lot to shock you too. Plus, someone’s always saying something crazy. From Rodrigo Duterte to Recep Tayipp to King Donald outlandish has become the parlance of our times.

And so today found me enjoying a moment of awe and appreciation for the World Surf League when I stopped by its official mouthpiece worldsurfleague.com earlier today. Awe and appreciation because the normally staid League succeeded in stopping me in my tracks with a headline so… fabulously inappropriate that I am still tickled.

Want to read together?

Watch: Mick Fanning Soaks Up “Infectious Grom Froth”

And one more time.

Watch: Mick Fanning Soaks Up “Infectious Grom Froth”

The beat writers who covered Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch escapades must be kicking themselves right now for not using the verb “soak” with the phrase “infectious grom froth” and fronting the whole thing with a command. “Watch.”

In truth, the story is the sweetest thing ever and you should soak it up too.

Watch: Mick Fanning Soaks Up “Infectious Grom Froth”

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Scandal: Olympic surfing massively corrupt?

Chas Smith

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Payoffs, bribes, graft, death threats, prostitutes, cocaine!

I will tell you, as a non-fan of soccer, the greatest part of the World Cup has historically been the massive corruption in/around/under/on top of the governing body FIFA. It was so bald-faced, so ridiculous as to make for wonderful comedy. Payoffs, bribes, graft, death threats, prostitutes, cocaine… You can’t script this!

Like, Qatar getting to host a World Cup, for example. I feel this was the dollar bill that broke FIFA’s back, giving the event to the hottest place in the world filled with oil rich sheiks driving Bugattis. But still very very very hot though nobody even cared because corrupt money never sleeps (because cocaine) and then the back was broken and now there is a new process for potential countries who dream of hosting the event.

So maybe FIFA cleaned up but as we both learned in school corruption can be neither created nor destroyed. It has to flow somewhere and did it all flow to Olympic surfing?

The great Maurice Cole wondered two days ago, for example, what in the world Australia’s Olympic hopefuls were doing traveling to Lemoore, California to partake in a few days “training session” at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch. Let’s recall his words:

Who’s paying for all the tickets? The hotels? The rental cars? The pool? What’s the total budget? Every single airfare is a couple of grand from Australia. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

Unless.

Unless.

It’s a WSL marketing exercise. Are they trying to put pressure on the ISA and IOC to use that pool for the Olympics? Why else would you be training in a pool? It’s the worst training you could do for Chiba. For fuck’s sake, send ’em to Chiba and train over there. It’s a lot cheaper and a lot more relevant to go to Chiba and surf two-to-three-foot beachbreaks and work on their technique there instead of in long lefts and rights.

Well, yesterday it was revealed that Chiba, Japan is indeed building a Surf Ranch that will be ready in time for the 2020 games. Derek Rielly wrote of this development:

“The planned construction site is on 57 hectares near the Tisayama Expressway. Land acquisition was completed by March this year. The size of the wave pool is 580 metres in length and 150 metres in width and equipped with a device that generates artificial waves by electronic control and generates waves up to about two metres in height.”

And this has payoffs, bribes, graft, death threats, prostitutes, cocaine written all over it! The World Surf League hijacking the Olympic Games in order to feature/sell more pools worldwide, etc. etc.

I will be pursuing this doggedly, like Rogers and Hammerstein, and will win a Pultizer and also Make Surfing Great Again because who doesn’t love corruption?

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jackson dorian
The remarkable Jackson Doz, son of Shane, getting revved up at Lemoore, maybe in time for the 2024 Games in Paris. | Photo: WSL

Just in: Chiba gets Surf Ranch in time for 2020 Olympics!

Derek Rielly

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"A US company supervised by famous surfer has founded a Japanese corporation and started preliminary work."

In wonderful news for anyone who appreciates the superiority of wave pools over most city beach breaks, a Japanese website has reported plans to build a Surf Ranch in Kisarazu City, Chiba, a dozen clicks from the Tokyo Dome.

Two days ago, a residents “briefing session” was held with no objections.

According to the story prosaically titled, Artificial wave pool for surfing competition scheduled to open just before the Olympics in Kisarazu/Chiba,

“When completed it will be able to do a full-scale surfing competition and will host a pro surfer world competition and so on. According to officials, a US company supervised by a famous surfer founded a Japanese corporation (Minato-ku, Tokyo) last March and started preliminary work.

‘The planned construction site is on 57 hectares near the Tisayama Expressway. Land acquisition was completed by March this year. The size of the wave pool is 580 metres in length and 150 metres in width and equipped with a device that generates artificial waves by electronic control and generates waves up to about two metres in height.”

“Construction is planned to start in September and be finished by December. The company aims to open for biz between January and March.”

Yesterday, the great shaper and surfer Maurice Cole ridiculed, with dramatic zest, Surfing Australia’s decision to book out six days at the Surf Ranch in Lemoore in prep for the games. 

Two three-day blocks of exclusive “training sessions” at Surf Ranch. With coaches, shapers, surfers. The whole entourage is over there. And it poses one really fucking big question. Why the fuck is Australia’s Olympic squad training for a contest that’s going to be held in two year’s time in a two-foot Japanese beachbreak at a long, slow wave-pool point?

Are they trying to put pressure on the ISA and IOC to use that pool for the Olympics? Why else would you be training in a pool? It’s the worst training you could do for Chiba. For fuck’s sake, send ’em to Chiba and train over there. It’s a lot cheaper and a lot more relevant to go to Chiba and surf two-to-three-foot beachbreaks and work on their technique there instead of in long lefts and rights.

Surfing Australia’s decision to throw a couple of hundred gees, or whatever it was, at pool training is starting to look eerily prophetic.

(Thanks to DrunkenAngel for the link and tip.)

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Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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