And Hermes quivers with rage!
Apparently Erik’s people were none too stoked on the
tone of the coverage last night but there was no actual
intent to abuse, humiliate or insult – more a sincere effort to
bring in a little emotional heft into the trash talk ala UFC and
see what happens.
Maybe it veered a little too close to homage but the WSL with
it’s hire of Joe Carr who fattened and then steered through the
sale of UFC to WME-IMG for 4 billion, surely could not be
squeamish. You can’t imagine him, for example, getting all giddy
like Pete Mel and pulling the mic on Gabe Medina when he said in a
2015 presser that if Glen “Micro” Hall told him to fuck off he’d
teach him a lesson in Portuguese.
Remember that? Same comp Freddy P lined up the inside rock for a
board slide. All scrubbed out by the hygienists at the WSL.
Round two heats lined up today and plenty of them, sifting
through a tide ravaged French lineup that threw up random gems . I
picked Wiggoly (d. Carmichael), Andino (d. Asing), Igarashi (lost
to Duru), Wilko (d. Bourez), Pupo (lost to Cardoso), J-Flo (lost to
Gouveia), Coffin (d. Mendes), M-Rod (d. February), Zeke (d. Hermes)
and Fred Morais (lost to Yago Dora).
A long wait between excellent rides. In fact, one single
eight-point was awarded to Yago Dora after 10 heats of pro surfing
in good to great, albeit tricky, three-to-five-fot hollow (at times
) French beachbreak. And that eight was an over-cook, probably
delivered in a moment of either frustration by Pritamo Ahrendt or
some kind of psychic meltdown he felt from the death-rays I was
sending his way through the computer screen .
No, the back half of the field did not cover themselves in
glory.
Zeke and Hermes fought a great heat. Zeke put up his power turns
and was slightly under-scored, like he was yesterday and a faint
whiff of robbery was in the air.
Something strange happened in the booth… I can only surmise,
maybe a bag of cookies bought back from Amsterdam was mistakenly
handed out for afternoon smoko? These things can happen in even the
most professional organisation. Something weirded out the panel
because they started highballing the hell out of Hermes waves. That
left Zeke chasing a high seven that he never really should
have needed and when he threaded a good but not mind-blowing tube
on the buzzer they were forced into giving him the (over) score. At
least they had the balls to over-score the fuck out of it so it
looked emphatic. There’s nothing worse than a weak over-score.
Hermes was quivering with rage when Rosie, towering a whole foot
taller than the Brazilian, tip-toed into the presser with a very
soothing tone. Tomas gave Rosie a gobful ” I don’t understand”, he
said. “I don’t even read the note they give us anymore.” It’s a
cosmic leveling I wanted to tell him. Instead of admitting to
mistakes, they level them up the next chance they get.
Hermes was quivering with rage when Rosie, towering a whole foot
taller than the Brazilian, tip-toed into the presser with a very
soothing tone. Tomas gave Rosie a gobful ” I don’t understand”, he
said. “I don’t even read the note they give us anymore.” It’s a
cosmic leveling I wanted to tell him. Instead of admitting to
mistakes, they level them up the next chance they get.
Dora’s eight-point ride came in on the heels of the drama. The
note from the judges had gone out and Innovation and Progression
were at the top of the list. Curious on a day of such limited
repertoire but Dora threw a carve, a straight up lip schwing in the
lip and then a high-speed lip glide ala Occy ’83 for the eight.
That made no sense either but here we were. Go check the analyser
and see what you think.
Freddy did not dig it, he was waving his arms around and banging
his chest. Last year they gave his brand of committed
meat-and-potato rail surfing tens. This year it may as well be a
bucket of prawns left in the hot sun. You could understand a man
feeling….rejected.
Italo and Wilko opened round three with potential for the heat
of the day as a south wind started to ruffle the lineup. A strong
opening exchange was scored almost equally. Italo started
freesurfing, throwing huge backside rotors into the wind. He must
have read the memo. Nothing stuck. But the strategy seemed to bait
Wilko into playing his game and going too big. Wilko fell. It was
tight with a minute and change to go. They split a peak. Wilko
threw two tight backhand hooks at a gurgly bowl. Italo threaded a
clean tube and finished with clean power turns. Coin toss.
Scores took an age to drop. Long enough to check the ratings and
see Wilko languishing in 36th place. I thought Italo had it, judges
gave it Wilko. Will that be enough to restore the missing mojo,
that is the question. Surely Wilko is too old and too ugly to go
back to the q-ey.
Gloom rolled in. It looked like the opening scene of Saving Private
Ryan. Connor squeaked past Yago, Jordy did the
same to Gouveia. My feed was feeble and having to refresh and be
force fed the Jeep ad time and time again literally turned my brain
to mush.
Lets catch up on the rest of round three below.
(Editor’s note: this included the elimination
of world tour leader, the Brazilian Filipe Toledo by wildcard Ryan
Callinan in round three. From the day’s presser, from the very good
Chloe Kojima: Callinan never looked defeated and fought
back to take an incredible come-from-behind victory with his last
two efforts of a 7.93 and an 8.87. The Australian, who received a
replacement wildcard for being the best non-CT surfer on the
Qualifying Series, played spoiler in the World Title race today by
eliminating Toledo, giving Gabriel Medina (BRA) a
golden opportunity to overtake his compatriot in the
rankings.
“I was pretty lost in the moment, to be honest,” Callinan said.
“I just built through the heat and the two waves that came to me
just happened to be beautiful waves with no lumps. It’s amazing out
there. I feel like I belong there now. When I was on tour, I had a
lot of big heats like that were close but never seemed to go my
way. It seems to be switching around in this event so it’s
great!”)
Quiksilver Pro France Remaining Round 2 (H3-12)
Results:
Heat 3: Wiggolly Dantas (BRA) 10.00 def. Wade Carmichael
(AUS) 6.83
Heat 4: Kolohe Andino (USA) 13.07 def. Keanu Asing
(HAW) 11.13
Heat 5: Joan Duru (FRA) 11.44 def. Kanoa Igarashi
(JPN) 10.56
Heat 6: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 11.50 def. Michel
Bourez (PYF) 9.00
Heat 7: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 13.44 def. Miguel
Pupo (BRA) 3.60
Heat 8: Ian Gouveia (BRA) 12.36 def. Jeremy Flores
(FRA) 9.50
Heat 9: Conner Coffin (USA) 14.00 def. Jesse
Mendes (BRA) 11.43
Heat 10: Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 14.10 def.
Michael February (ZAF) 12.93
Heat 11: Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 13.93 def. Tomas Hermes
(BRA) 13.80
Heat 12: Yago Dora (BRA) 15.77 def. Frederico
Morais (PRT) 15.57
Quiksilver Pro France Round 3 (H1-7) Results:
Heat 1: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 13.90 def. Italo Ferreira
(BRA) 13.84
Heat 2: Conner Coffin (USA) 10.43 def. Yago Dora
(BRA) 10.27
Heat 3: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 10.50 def. Ian Gouveia
(BRA) 10.30
Heat 4: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 11.13 def. Connor
O’Leary (AUS) 11.07
Heat 5: Adriano De Souza (BRA) 15.20 def. Adrian
Buchan (AUS) 11.14
Heat 6: Ryan Callinan (AUS) 16.80 def. Filipe
Toledo (BRA) 16.60
Heat 7: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 11.33 def. Wiggolly
Dantas (BRA) 8.37
Quiksilver Pro France Remaining Round 3 (H8-12)
Matchups:
Heat 8: Michael Rodrigues (BRA) vs. Ezekiel Lau
(HAW)
Heat 9: Mikey Wright (AUS) vs. Joel Parkinson
(AUS)
Heat 10: Kolohe Andino (USA) vs. Patrick Gudauskas
(USA)
Heat 11: Griffin Colapinto (USA) vs. Sebastian
Zietz (HAW)
Heat 12: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Joan Duru
(FRA)