Surf Ranch, Day Three: “Kolohe Accuses Judges of Mind Tricks; Kelly’s overscore makes the king look clothed in gold!”

If you are going to broadcast to the world and call it sport then you need at least the illusion of fairness and transparency. 

After breathing the rarefied air from yesterday’s dizzying climb it was a buzzkill to have go back to basecamp and watch the field of honest journeyman get crushed by boulders they had no hope of summiting with. Three days in and the affair has blended into a quagmire of instantly forgettable rides.

The scoreboard takes an age to update which meant the mind had to loose itself from the previous ride to focus on the current one. That, and the bombardment of advertising between each ride, made for a particular psychological challenge to stay engaged. I mean in a wave by wave fashion which gives the event some meaning as sport.

If there was one thing to be grateful for in the Run Three reset it  was Miggy Poops being able to elevate himself from the muck of mediocre rides. He rode a left and a right gracefully, beautifully. Like other surfers the camera cut to the dewey eyed babe watching nervously on the …..shoreline?…presumably his wife added some kind of emotional intensity to the broadcast.

After three days of having waves of uncommon length and perfection implanted in my brain I feel a curious sense of hunger. The return on investment for the viewer, in terms of memorable moments, is low, even by pro surfing standards.  The prodigality of the ocean has been supplanted by the stinginess of the machine. We’ve seen a lot, but we’ve barely seen anything of substance. Mikey Wright spoke of feeling like he’d had only half a bite of an apple. Judging from the shellshocked and wistful pressers with the losing contestants that must have been a common reaction.

If there was one thing to be grateful for in the Run Three reset it  was Miggy Poops being able to elevate himself from the muck of mediocre rides. He rode a left and a right gracefully, beautifully. Like other surfers the camera cut to the dewey eyed babe watching nervously on the …..shoreline?…presumably his wife added some kind of emotional intensity to the broadcast. 

The tub had, presumably by some common consent, become a “basin”. Pete Mel got assigned the job of pitchman and took to hustling merch with a feverish intensity. Mobile phone cases, WSL merch, a muddy pond with blow-up swans. Pete took to it all with admirable sincerity.

It was becoming hard to separate one rider from another. Style is exposed in the ocean. Heightened. In the basin it is flattened. They surf a little less like themselves. If the ocean is a karma sutra where the range of positions is infinite to the imaginative lovers the basin seems more like jackhammer sex with an unresponsive doll. It gets the job done for the participant no doubt, but to the onlooker it lacks grace. (Editor’s note: Just read Jen See, she says it so much better).

Only Italo made it look like he was having fun. He loosened up the program and dished up a left spiced with a pair of cleanly made airs and a ton of repertoire. This was minutes after Pete Mel almost burst a haemerrhoid telling us judges wanted innovation, progression, risk etc etc. 

Except they didn’t. They just didn’t.

You can create your own walled reality and do what you want with it – from Rockefeller to William Randolph Hearst to Gates, Zuckerberg, Page et al, that’s the American dream – but if you are going to broadcast it to the world and call it sport then you need at least the illusion of fairness and transparency.

Kelly proved that in short order. Riding a left that was, I can’t even describe it, except to say it might have been state of the art in 1998 but it wasn’t in 2018 and was scored a full point and change over Italo. Conveniently, along with his 8.5 from Day 1 Kelly was now rocketed up to second place on the leaderboard. 

You can create your own walled reality and do what you want with it – from Rockefeller to William Randolph Hearst to Gates, Zuckerberg, Page et al, that’s the American dream – but if you are going to broadcast it to the world and call it sport then you need at least the illusion of fairness and transparency. 

Kelly’s overscore made the Surf Ranch look less level playing field for all and more private fiefdom, administered by opaque decrees designed to make the King look clothed in gold. This is a man who has claimed injury has prevented him from surfing all events except those in his private basin, and who will probably be granted the injury wildcard next year in spite of it. Italo’s injured hamstring has been discussed ad naseum, Kelly’s busted hoof carries the mystique of the Turin shroud. As inviolable as the Koran. From any viewing angle, it don’t look right.

Grown-up sports have independent broadcasters and commentary teams and integrity units and judiciaries and other accoutrements aimed at least giving an impression of accountability. That’s how folks believe that it’s at least semi-legit. Pro surfing believes in back slapping and bubbles and magical thinking, as long as someone else picks up the tab. 

This confusion turned to disgruntlement and boiled over in Kolohe’s post heat presser. Kolohe accused the judges of “playing mind tricks” and rewarding safety surfing and sitting in a barrell that carried with it no risk. “I thought they wanted to see risk,” he said.

So did I Brother, so did I. I thought he had legitimate beef to have not made the cut. Certainly, his two wave total should have bested Kelly.

The high point of the day was supplied by Julian Wilson. He greased a rooftop landing on a lofted reverse on the left then exclaimed a static free right with a monster slob grab. His was the counter-factual to Kelly’s insider trading. No pre-trip warm-ups. He settled the nerves by “not watching anything”. A quick skate to warm-up then boom.

The WSL site and app crashed for the final two runs with Medina and Filipe. I clicked to Facebook feed. The Oceania audience rocketed up from 2600 to 2900 which indicated 300 hardy souls were tuned to the WSL webcast. Facey had no scores, no leaderboard and a failed audio sync. Angry face emojis sailed skywards through the screen and made surreal bedfellows with Toledo’s high-as-fuck-but-just-failed flip.

Anyway you measure it the numbers look pitiful. 

The swolled field should have been thinned sooner allowing extra runs for the Final day. Eight man field left, four women. That should be a clear cut demonstration of winner and loser if judges can decide on what is good surfing 2018, not looking into the rearview mirror and pining for a day long gone.