While America and Australia sleeps, China and Russia tune in to pro surfing!
You might recall, way back in March, March 9 to be exact, when veteran surf journalist Sean Doherty made the statement that “after 20 years, this will be the last time Snapper will open the tour”.
Word was, that in the grand new tour restructure it would be Portugal having the season opening champagne cracked on her bows. I expressed disbelief because I didn’t think the person had been born yet who thought the optics of opening the tour in grey old wintery Europe on the shores of Melville’s “tornadoed Atlantic” were a good idea.
Thus it came to be. We got our old comfortable tour back, shorn of its sponsors and revelling in weird zeitgeisty names like Men’s Gold Coast Pro and France Women’s Pro.
An astute commentor said there is room for France or Portugal on a world tour, but not both. I lean towards France because the evening light is dreamy and that almost alone, is how locations should be determined. If no blue water or backlit evening dreams then a castle or a cobblestoned street should be clearly in the field of view.
Supertubos, with its industrial backdrop and brown, rip-ravaged line-up is a tough watch. Especially on a day like today, when we got to watch the field stooped and swinging pick-axes in a mostly vain attempt to excavate what assistant Comish Trav Logie called the “diamonds in the rough”.
The basic stat: an average wave score of 4.32 for the days 18 heats shows the poor quality of the ore, if you’ll pardon my mangling of the mining metaphor.
Italo seemed to warm the lineup with low altitude airs and punchy turns after a winning heat from Jordy which he generously described as “dressing up a pig”. The Facebook feed had somehow magically inflated from it’s typical two to three thousand viewers to over nine thousand. America snoozing, late night in Aus and a raggedy rip-torn round one Supertubos lineup bought three times the viewers to the yard?
In a day of low drama, interest focussed on the first six heats of round one, which mercifully contained the Title contenders, plus front runners.
Italo seemed to warm the lineup with low altitude airs and punchy turns after a winning heat from Jordy which he generously described as “dressing up a pig”. The Facebook feed had somehow magically inflated from its typical two to three thousand viewers to over nine thousand. America snoozing, late night in Aus and a raggedy rip-torn round one Supertubos lineup bought three times the viewers to the yard? Not doubting the brilliance and efficiency of the WSL marketing. But when a highly invested semi-pro fan like me is scouring the site for WSL news and a forecast and on the days leading up to the event there is still nothing…
Lot of hectic flak came my way over perceived unfair criticism of Keanu and his expositions on winning strategy in the booth. My counter-argument: that it’s surfing performance and not strategy that wins heats was brilliantly exemplified by France winner Julian Wilson. Wilson said something in France which caught my ear. Words to the effect that even though he won at Kirra with a busted shoulder his surfing hadn’t been where he wanted it and now at the back end of the year he was finally getting his surfing to a level he was happy with. Cliche I know, but the improvement has been marked, beginning with Surf Ranch. Manifested in a willingness to go to the air and go big in the air. He threaded a deep tube and ran an audacious line across the top of a horrowshow close-out lip for a dominant victory.
A north wind slowly cleaned up the line-up, sun came out. It looked prettier as Filipe took on Tomas Hermes and Miguel Blanco in heat five. Toledo looked, shaky. Again. Even half a world away you can sense the mojo has drained out of him. Three minutes to go and he needed a 6.97. He exploded into a inverted air reverse. Judges gave a five, preferring the meat and potatoes, lean and sweet granted, of Tomas Hermes. Hermes must have been tuned into the Asing strategy brouhaha as he pointedly told Rosie that competition came naturally to him due to his country of birth but that he required “evolution, I need to surf better.”
Remember Kelly in his heyday? I very much prefer the second act , Titles 8, 9, 10 and 11, against vastly superior opposition to the early titles. No disrespect intended to Shane Beschen et al. A day of low-scoring closeouts and Kelly would appear and conjure a massive heat score. Medina is not quite there, but he’s close enough. He motored around the lineup picking off scoring waves at will. Tube-rides, aggro two turn combos on brutal close-outs. I just can’t quite get my head around why judges are giving him sixes and Julian sevens. With Fanning in the booth as the analyst it became a joy to watch. I never quite developed the love and reverence for Fanning which seemed to become his national legacy, but as soon as his voice came through the ether I realised I had missed the bastard. He truly went out on top. Parko has stayed a couple of years too many, Kelly will never go.
Round 2 ground on. Filipe did enough to squeak past wildcard Sammy Pupo on the strength of a deep tube ridden in the opening minute. Cardoso knocked a hapless Asing. Sport is cruel. Sublimated cruelty is cathartic.
Callinan remains the sole wildcard left in the field. His round three match-up with Medina has potential to be the heat of the comp.
On a day like today of mostly stultifying routine a rule like that which introduces the potential for last-second drama and chaos is a godsend.
One last word on that technical rule that saw Pat G defeat Kolohe in France. On a day like today of mostly stultifying routine a rule like that which introduces the potential for last-second drama and chaos is a godsend. The aim of the rule: to break open the heat right at the death and allow for a last-minute buzzer beater to be ridden without being shut down by priority is pitch perfect. It functions as a stupidity tax, which is to be applauded in modern life.
Please don’t change it Mr Comish.
See you back here tonight with all our new found Chinese and Russian fans.
Why does everybody hates me?
It must be the Oprah guy effect…
You can’t get your head around why they are giving Medina 6s and Wilson 7s. I believe it’s because the WSL doesn’t want a Brazilian champ
Yes these heats were hard to watch as a surfing wanderer of the 90’s the appeal of peniche was in town not the months waiting for good supetubos
The obvious hatred between Kaipo (unlistenable) and Peter (actual idiot) is borderline embarrassing. They clearly hate each other. It’s like two teenagers who decide to disagree on everything out of principle.
us open against beschen #1
how many heats has Slater won by strategy? 500? 1,000?
Dude get over the Keanu thing.
yeah yeah.
But um, Kelly is one of the few guys who has totally revolutionised and continually updated his surfing skill set.
Where is the veteran surf journalist?
Pensioned off?
Are the 500 internal error embeds intentional? Could Thomas Hermes use of the word ‘like’ be a bit over used?
Like how funny was that
Julian was given a 7.0 for not riding out of a turn.
I think they correctly paid the finish.
Ok the judges deemed the wave complete but was it worth a point more than both of Oleary’s barrels especially the last one which was deep and he came out of cleanly ? Julian’s 7(?) was risky but not really pushing the envelope of progression since this type of turn has been done since the late 80s and I saw a dozen just as good in the 92 world juniors at Lacanau the year Chad Esser beat Ken Dann in the final .
bloody ziff and the russians how unusual http://ridiculousricl.blogs…
i predict a rise in numbers on the african continent some time soon https://www.bloomberg.com/n…
This is why we long for Tom!
I will take my crow well done if you please Longtom. Keanu’s performance in round 1 was lackluster and showed no sort of “heat strategy” as he was clearly overmatched in the slop that was the Portugese line up. However, i would take you to task in looking at Asing vs Cardoso round 2, as the scores given to Cardoso seemed to be quite inflated vs those of Asing. Cardoso’s 6.67 vs Asings 4.50. Seems Asing passed the eye test in quality of turns on that exchange, and yet still came a full 2017 short of Cardoso. Not to mention Cardo’s 7.83 possibly being one of the ugliest in history, no strategy can save you from a panel of judges pushing a story line that does not end in your favor. Is the Panda the better marketing piece? There are indeed two tiers of surfers on the WCT, and i am not so sure it all shakes out in the wash.
Portugal is a shit comp, that i would prefer to see off the tour as well. Much like the Triple Crown with Haliewa and Sunset, it is quite a travesty to see qualifications decided by venues that have nearly as much to do with luck as they do skill. Bring back Tavi and Lowers, as at least there is a skill set required and usually the best surfers win out.
Wow, I loved his 783, moved more water on that wave than keanus last 3 heats
7.83 was undoubtedly the best wave ridden. Pushing it to a 7.83 was a direct result of the overscore of the 6.67. It was sloppy and forced.
Agreed , the spread between Asing’s and Cardoso’s waves was way overcooked.
Still, Asing was never going to beat Cardoso with standard turns of any description. He had to go hi-fi and judges penalised him when he didn’t.
In effect, he was penalised for poor strategy.
Agreed! I remember Pat O in a Gland Pro video (VHS) coming up against maybe Mick Lowe (?) at 6-8ft money’s. He said no way can I out turn him, so he rode his smallest board to surf tighter, and he won.
I will watch heats. I will sometimes even watch Keanu. But these heats are usually when I run errands such as take a turd, or look at the internet.
perhaps you should stop watching and use the time to live stream your turd. probably get more views than the wsl.
This is becoming more and more of a battle of Instagram account numbers ? Just ask sponsors why and how much they pay their respective surfers ? Sadly the WSL circus, which should be an independent governing body , may be colluding so we will only see media darlings , qualifying and resting on the tour ? Too many close heats (0.10 and less )tend to go to mr or miss popularity ?
We should all coordinate a Facebook viewer check from our respective areas. Like, for the Pipe comp we all take a screengrab of the viewer count during the finals or whatever. Then post the screengrab here and include the city we’re in. See how it differs or is similar. I have no life, BTW.
I surf the flak.
In this case well deserved as u DO have to know how to win heats to qualify for the ct.
I wonder what the average heat score for every event over, say, the last five years is? Would it be telling enough to say, if it’s less than 6.0 (or whatever) then cut the even from the tour?
I don’t know, looking at the average heat score for each event over the last four years, between 2014 and 2017,* (roughly 470 scored heat totals each) you get this:
Snapper – 13.24 (4th highest)
Margs – 12.10 (9th)
Bells – 13.36 (3rd)
Rio – 12.26 (7th)
Fiji – 12.33 (6th)
J-Bay – 13.54 (2nd)
Tahiti – 12.15 (8th)
Trestles – 13.70 (1st)
France – 12.34 (5th)
Portugal – 11.31 (10th)
Pipe – 9.38 (11th)
Weird mix of results. Portugal comes out second worst, barely managing over an 11 point heat total… Pipe by far the worst (maybe Soph is on to something!). Suggesting Bells to be the third best event on Tour seems highly preposterous, considering how horribly boring that event is to watch…
*the last four only because 2014 is when the Pipe Hawaii wildcards changed to present no locals situation.
Let’s all pitch in and buy the WSL so that Karl can run it.
EDIT **^$## If the Wassle knew shit about anything, Karl could just chill, He has a lot to do! Over to you Vodka..
I honestly thought pipe might be one of the lowest. Nice work on the number crunch!
Interesting. I think what we’re seeing here is a ranking of the tour waves from “easiest to surf” to “hardest to surf”.
Except I hope Fiji is harder to surf than Rio…
I did pause on that for a moment before my initial comment. In my mind that can probably be attributed to Rio being a shifty beach break where it can quite often be a challenge to even find a decent wave.
Memo
From: WSL HQ Portugal
To: Facebook HQ Ireland
cc: Erik Logan
Aloha Amigos,
As you know, we recently moved the WSL HQ to Portugal. The Meo Rip Curl Portugal Pro is running. Could you please have employees at Facebook HQ Europe log on to the contest. Erik Logan has suggested that longtom & Beach Grit will be muzzled with increased viewership. Jeep HQ is surfing the Facebook broadcast already.
Thanks
So-Gold
#getmassive
cc: E-Lo
Facebot.
E-Lo: “Hey So-Gold, you don’t mind if I give you that nickname do you Sophie? Anyways, in the TV biz, our advertisers cared about ratings. Viewer #’s are hella impor-Tant!!! And you ain’t, that’s Oklahoma jargon, gonna believe ways we’ve tried to manipulate those numbers. Not importain’t how?! You ain’t woke enough for that truth in this post truth world. Anyways, listen So-Gold, that’s TV. Notice how you can spell Facebook without ” t” and “v”. Facebook will manipulate anything. Now go pour yourself a port u gal!!! Cheers! Easy E-Lo (that’s my gangsta name)”
Dude S Tubos just like hammerland bro
It’s a fishing town bro
With lots of alleys and cobbles
I was there in 2010 and met some ubersexy Russian surf fans
tell us more about these fans.
Ok
So it’s finals day 2010 and I’m on the sand right where the boys exit the scaffold.
There are 3 blondes that are keeping my eyes off the good action in the water.
I’d previously dated for 7 years on/off this ice cold, rude as fuck southern russian who had a body so that you’d put up with anything. I’d learnt a few key phrases and used them with great success with these eyepoppers.
They said they were super keen fans of the wave boys but were disappointed that AI exited the comp. Was his last heat I think?
No matter, Kelly would do. My game was good until they were plucked from the crowd by some surf roadies during the presso and taken inside the scaffolding.
Dar Dar they were about to have their salty wet dreams come true!!
Pro Surfing, ahhhh what could be. Probably one of the raddest sports in the world. Watching a tour caliber surfer, knifing under the hood, smashing lips. Blazing fatties between heats, smashing pints at french speak easy’s. Even the tours names are cool, No one is named Kolohe or Connor in Tennis, the UFC maybe. But never Tennis, never. But instead, it is like a bad fringe sport, like a dart league on the ocho. dodgeball style. Judges that are clearly influenced, another Brazilian world champion, is a death sentence for major markets….Think less Aussies and US kids caring about competitive surfing. There is not need to leave the goldie or the OC, champions are forged in the favela. Aussies living on wheat-bix, growing up in housies, don’t make the tour anymore. $ is too good now in Oz, 6 months on……6 months off, babes everywhere. What do to, what to do. Well, for one. Get a f’ng mega Brazilian brand to be the lead sponsor, then….. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Saw a thing on Tony Hawk regards how the pro-skate tour came about. Along the lines of ‘We weren’t thinking about making a living out of it, it was just “cool, we get to hang out with some mates and bust some moves”‘. That’s what it needs. A bit more of the best surfers, surfing some good waves, with little care for the eyeballs of non-surfers. If there was a product that surfers were invested in, from the perspective of genuine interest, then it would either attract interest from outside or it wouldn’t. Either way, there would be a ‘product’ that had value.
While the surfing in France and Portugal has been impressive, the average joe on the couch isn’t going to latch on to it in the same way because they can’t relate to the amount of skill required to get in the right places and/or make it out. To them, it’s just splashing around for fun on the one week a year they spend at the beach. Nobody is talking about Julian winning in France at his home beach other than about 10 (invested) people.
Me: “Jules had a good win last night”
Mates: “Did he? Ahhh, that’s great. Are there any waves out here?”…
And that is at his fucking home beach!
Pablo Carreno Busta is a pretty cool tennis name and I am partial to Juan Martin as well