The superbly in-form Kolohe Andino loses to Pat Gudauskas on obscure techniciality; Seb Zietz surfs out of his skin to beat Griff C and more from Hossegor!
Dark days for both Toledo as a Title contender and my professional reputation as a WSL correspondent. Despite seeing that round three heat with Callinan looming like the nuts on a pit-bull I tapped out.
Mountains of excuses come to mind: I’m an Indo-Pacific gal, sleep deprivation, saturation marketing as psychological torture, Erik’s people spiked my drink and therefore I was date-raped by pro surfing etc etc but they would all be malicious fictions.
Reality is, one minute I’m on the tools tapping the keys the nek I’m on the couch, tapped out. Missed a title heat.
Unforgiveable.
An incapacity to own a fuck-up is almost a defining feature of the pro surf game. Thus we get Keanu Asing in the booth (Ranking 36, three heat wins 2018, average heat eat score 9.86) pontificating on how to win heats hot on the heels of a heat loss he should have won. No disrespect to Asing, big heart etc etc but when he shows he can win heats his analysis has cred.
An incapacity to own a fuck-up is almost a defining feature of the pro surf game. Thus we get Keanu Asing in the booth (Ranking 36, three heat wins 2018, average heat eat score 9.86) pontificating on how to win heats hot on the heels of a heat loss he should have won. No disrespect to Asing, big heart etc etc but when he shows he can win heats his analysis has cred.
Till then, when it comes to viable pro surfing analysts: Kelly Slater with 11 World Title= yes. Keanu Asing, about to be bundled off tour for the second time = no.
My Toledo tap-out does illustrate what I call the “digestion” problem for fans both hard-core and casual. You can think of it like this: imagine a Wagyu steak, rare, or if vegan a piece of silken tofu. To get to it you have to eat a bale of hay. The steak is the Toledo heat, the bale of hay is the indigestible dross of the ten heats preceding it. Even the hardest-core fan burns out their digestion on the dross and taps out before the steak.
Cut the roster.
More steak, less hay.
Five heats completed today in declining hieroglyphic French beachbreak, that being the balance of round three. Good entertainment at that length. M-Rod bested Zeke after a fiery exchange which Zeke put down to “competition, I’m competing”. John Florence sprang to mind. Having your personal space invaded when you’re set for life and a 48-foot Gunboat catamaran waits to be put on a broad reach might seem a little less attractive now that two world titles sit on the mantlepiece.
Mikey jogged past a Parko on his testimonial lap with one savage, jagged hack in the lip worth the thirty minutes invested.
The next heat with Patty Gudang and Brother was a classic. Andino, 24, gave his fellow San Clementean Gudauskas, who is 32, plenty of space. So much space that 1989 World Champ Martin Potter chortled that the two pals were having a freesurf together and any idea of competing was out the door. Kolohe carefully gathered nuts and built scores. Patty G did not. With a clock ticking down and a pair of mid to high sixes in Brother’s back pocket next to a priority call Patty G paddled into a dismal peak.
He took off as the horn sounded, which reset priority. It motherfucking reset priority and Andino – who to my eye knowing Patty G would not get the score – was laying down a little friendly dominance play on him… got jabbed right in the neck by it.
Gudauskas gesticulated to the judges. What is this QS-level shit I thought?
And then, when the brilliance of the knowledge was revealed and Kolohe swore then buckled at the knees and Pat’s gal came sashaying down the beach, twirling and whirling with pure joy in a bohemian dream of leopard skin dress and red beret, it was glorious. An underdog rising up! A roughie from the back of the pack!
And then, when the brilliance of the knowledge was revealed and Kolohe swore then buckled at the knees and Pat’s gal came sashaying down the beach, twirling and whirling with pure joy in a bohemian dream of leopard skin dress and red beret, it was glorious. An underdog rising up! A roughie from the back of the pack!
Underdogs end up in shallow graves in this sport. It’s cruel like that. But good.
Zietz and Colapinto fought a really tight heat, another coin toss. Griff landed badly on an air attempt then came back with a couple of sizzling rides. Zietz took it on the final wave. Later, Colapinto said he was “caught between two mindsets. Didn’t know whether to wait for the best waves or go for an air”. When pressed for his lessons from the heat a shirtless Griff said he needed more time to digest the loss and he would get back to Rosie. Pete Mel sensibly observed that Rosie was “comin’ in a little hot.”
Do I sound entertained? I was very entertained.
Last heat of the day and Wilson looked superbly sharp. Very fast, very connected, very decisive in his turn selection and execution. He easily dispatched a hapless Joan Duru, current rating 34.
More swell coming, with funky winds.
I see another epic Medina/Wilson Final looming.
Quiksilver Pro France Remaining Round 3 (H8-12) Results:
Heat 8: Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 13.53 def. Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 11.16
Heat 9: Mikey Wright (AUS) 11.53 def. Joel Parkinson (AUS) 10.90
Heat 10: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 8.06 def. Kolohe Andino (USA) 6.77
Heat 11: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 12.70 def. Griffin Colapinto (USA) 12.33
Heat 12: Julian Wilson (AUS) 13.53 def. Joan Duru (FRA) 10.36
Quiksilver Pro France Round 4 Matchups:
Heat 1: Matt Wilkinson (AUS), Conner Coffin (USA), Jordy Smith (ZAF)
Heat 2: Willian Cardoso (BRA), Adriano De Souza (BRA), Ryan Callinan (AUS)
Heat 3: Gabriel Medina (BRA), Michael Rodrigues (BRA), Mikey Wright (AUS)
Heat 4: Patrick Gudauskas (USA), Sebastian Zietz (HAW), Julian Wilson (AUS)
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Fair enough – all good conversation. I really like Andino – he just seems to find a way to lose in strange ways. Not great insight on my part, but when I saw him paddling for that wave I thought “why even bother…”
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
“And when or if the sun shines
Lighting our once beautiful features
We’ll smile but only for seconds
For to be caught smiling is to acknowledge life
A brave but useless show of compassion
And that is forbidden in this drab and colourless world”
…if Bob can get a Nobel Prize, why not Paul Weller?
Funny enough Fred didn’t get much love on his man turns…
What happened between Zeke and MRod? Don’t tell me Zeke is being an haole again… sorry, asshole?
I can’t get passed the fact that you guys are arguing some stupid fucking rule and not about Pat G’s supposed genius IQ. WTF.
“Cut the roster.” You’re joking, surely? It’s not the lack of talent on the CT, it’s the format-there are so many good QS surfers deserving a ride and to be fairly compensated for their ability etc. There’s plenty of meat out there, it’s just the dross and doldrums of the format, time for a reinvention.
agree. still think the field needs to be cut.
I think they should bring it back to the old way, get rid of this two tier shit, have 4 man heats for everything and 30 comps a year. Enter whichever events you want with top 16 or top 32 getting seeded. High rated comps get you all the rankings points but if you’re struggling to make the cut, slum it in Hainan Island or New Jersey.
It was way more interesting when rookies got on a roll and started smashing their way up the rankings. Even Curren in 1990 (IIRC) had to do it that way on the way to his third title because he’d taken time off. Yet Slater can be ‘injured’ whenever he feels like and just parachute his way into the CT next year. I don’t deny his unprecedented record (how could you) but this injury charade is pretty unprofessional. He just wants try and win again (at age 47) with all the points wiped clean at the start of 2019 because he knows this year he had no chance.
Well it’s tricky this one I think, the talent balance, surfing is naturally a global sport and there’s a lot of good surfers in the world, you need a fair bit of range in a sport in order to really see the best by comparison, and sports rarely seem to improve through a significant reduction in numbers. If you want a complete meal you can’t just eat steak. But that idea WSL had and now seems to have piked out on, that end of the year world champ decider shoot-out, man I think we could all have stood to watch that. Top eight with it all on the line? Fuck yeah.
Controlling your board in the air with your toes seems pretty hard to me…man turns…well I just need to let my overweighted body do the work…
Oi longtom ,why you (far too often me thinks) refer to yourself as a “gal” this or a “gal” that…….its fucken strange
just a bad habit.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Fair nuff,I got a few of those too..love your work
It’s a D Rielly trope.
Why do Sebastian and Kolohe look like frat twins??
“Hieroglyphic French beach-break”
“Underdogs end up in shallow graves”
So fucking good
You keeping something from us Nick?
No. progoatboater is on the gear.
I agree the judges followed the rule as written I just think it’s a silly rule and I don’t see how it promotes anything desirable.
Does John own a 48ft Gunboat? Such exquisite taste! I like him more by the day.
Why aint nobody talking about Julian and the title race? Is there some dark shit going on in the background that’s hands off for surf ‘journalists’?
Because he’s an outside chance, with Felipe and GM ahead when counting throwaways.
LOL
And using your convict logic Keanu Asing, the defending Quik Pro Champ, is not a viable pro surfing analyst but YOU are?
Fuck Mate you are letting the quality of previous articles cloud your thoughts. All of you kooks have been pining for a well spoken fairly articulate ct competitor and here he is. Get stuffed Short Tim.
He is surprisingly articulate and disarmingly genuine, fuck Pottz off and drop Anu Boy into the slot, at least we wouldn’t have to hear sycophantic Joe T romancing his simian sidekick!
Medina is the defending QuikPro France Champ.
2 years ago then you get my point
When he shows he can win heats his analysis has cred? He’s the defending champ LT dark days indeed.
Medina is defending champ.
The rule you reference was not the part of the rule that was called against Andino.
The part of the rule in debate here is the Priority stopped (for all surfers) once the horn sounded. If Andino had stood up with 1 second left, there would NOT have been any interference.
LT what is the world coming to when you have to allow for Vegans in your metaphors!
I think the military call it operant conditioning!
Yeah but that’s the whole benefit of having priority. There’s no reason to throw it out after the hooter if you’re not throwing out the score. Is the surfer with priority supposed to take off on the last wave before they think the hooter will sound no matter what?