I am not a sleeper-inner by nature but, for
some reason, I cannot wake up early enough for this contest. Well,
better late than never. Pottz just said there are “cute little
barrels” for this perfect finals day. “Days like this you dream of
being a free surfer…” he just said.
What did we miss?
Filipe beat Igarashi in Quarter 1
Fred beat Julian in Quarter 2
John John has dipped out due injury, sending Jordy through.
Kolohe beat Medina and I will go watch that replay now but after
the rest of this fabulous day.
A Modest Proposal: Gift the best freshwater
surfer in the world a wild card to the Freshwater Pro!
By Chas Smith
Cultural appropriation at its most bald-faced!
The World Surf League’s paid post advertising
the upcoming Freshwater Pro has been playing non-stop in my
Instagram feed and I now hate Jack White. Or, not Jack White per
se. That was a mean statement and over the top. Rather I hate The
Raconteurs. The song used to advertise the Freshwater Pro is
obnoxious and it makes me recall how I’d never really liked a The
Raconteurs song while liking very many from Jack himself or Jack
paired with Meg.
Anyhow, the comments on the paid post are very funny with 7 in
10 cursing the World Surf League for cancelling Trestles and/or
Cloudbreak and/or Mundaka. One, in particular, snagged my
attention. It was not mean or hateful but wise and interesting.
@no_ocean_required tagged both the League and Kelly Slater
asking, “As this is freshwater event, how about a freshwater
wildcard from the Great Lakes?”
And as far as cultural appropriation goes, I believe
@no_ocean_required makes a fine point.
We are all evolved, aren’t we? And especially Kelly Slater.
Evolved to the point of shunning the shaka on the grounds of
cultural appropriation and I think it is only right for him to
listen here. Oh, of course he should look beyond the Great Lakes to
Munich’s river surfers and other tidal bore surfers and should
probably open it up to wake surfers as well, seeing that loud
machines create both wake surfer waves and Surf Ranch ones too.
A fine point entirely. I’d be more interested tuning into the
Freshwater Pro Freshwater Trials than the main event.
But what about you?
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That would have been a ten. But it also
exposed John's weakness. Going big in the air has caused serious
injury to the champ. High ankle sprain, ruptured cruciate ligament.
At 20 years younger than Kelly it's hard to see John lasting into
his thirties with the injury toll already mounting. All that scar
tissue has a way of catching up to you. WSL
Oi Rio Pro, Day Three: “John John Florence
yanks out knee, Kelly Slater loses beautifully!”
By Longtom
And the power shifts from the anglocentric world to
the Latin…
Since when did Brazil become the new heavy water
location on Tour?
Is this something that has been happening under our noses for
years and only a seasonal shift deeper into winter and a location
move to Saquarema has unlocked?
Can one of our Brazilian experts here please educate?
Barrinha today at times looked like North Point, Backdoor,
that air wave in Reunion
from Modern Collective and one of those
Mexican right points in Barra. A wave outside the limits of most
recreational surfers.
Medina, as golden light streamed through the Igreja de Nossa
Senhora de Nazareth, was the only goofyfooter skilled enough to
tame Barrinha this afternoon. We’ve seen more angry double overhead
waves in Brazil in the last 48 hours than the last two years in
Tahiti.
It is strange, it is bizarre, it is true. Time for a
reassessment.
Did I miss the hype for the Slater/Toledo super heat today?
Surfing’s official historian, Matt Warshaw, alluded to it but I
thought going into it WSL had underplayed it. There were no leaked
videos of Slater “praising “ Toledo as the best small-wave surfer
on earth in the lead-up, no sly trash talk at all, far as I could
see. Just a huge crowd (with the average person a little more out
of shape than we might have expected, if I could be provocative)
and a military escort for Filipe to make it to the beach.
As an opening heat at Barrinha it couldn’t have been better.
Cross-shore, backwashy, devilishly tricky double -overhead
barrelling wedges. Sebastian Inlet on a triple helping of growth
hormone. There was nothing “relatable” about it. Which usually
means Kelly Slater will make the insane happen.
He did, he did.
But first, Filipe sliced a wave and landed a greased rotation,
on the bolts, as they say and all observers thought “That’s it,
Kelly’s cooked, good night old man etc etc”.
If you’d said at the start of the year Kelly would fight back
with a double-overhead, technical tube-ride, as heavy as Backdoor,
with a degree of difficulty off the charts, you would have been
mocked, ridiculed, denounced as an enemy of the people, called a
stooge, a nut job, a fantasist, a WSL stool pigeon or much
worse.
That, though, is what happened.
Kelly bested Filipe’s generous 9.17 with a 9.50. Game on.
What I find most staggering about the 47-year0-old version of
Kelly is his willingness and ability to absorb punishment. At Pipe
last year Kelly took beating after beating. The consequences, even
for young studs, are not trifling. Head injuries, pelvises snapped
in half, arms ripped out of shoulder sockets, knee ligaments
snapped, grave surgeons delivering bad news about broken backs.
At Barrinha he repeated the formula.
A free-fall drop with the board fluttering around a cascading
section yielded only a five. Filipe held his nerve and calmly
slotted a set wave and that was it. You got the feeling Kelly was
only one more wave from a ten but a hellaciously long time stranded
in the shorebreak while sets strafed the line-up killed his
chances.
A very significant heat. He won ugly yesterday and lost
beautiful today.
That heat made the following heats look very pedestrian by
comparison. Kanoa, Fred Morais and Julian all besting opponents
without grabbing Barrinha by the neck. Julian admitting in the
presser, the rambunctious lineup made him feel like a kook.
Forty-six-minute over-lapping heats in heavy lineups are tailor
made for John John Florence. Time to relax and surf. Like Kelly he
took multiple chances on waves that looked like closeouts, were
closeouts, but could have been ten-point rides. Four attempts for
four non-makes.
Wade Carmichael refrained from catching a wave in that time.
One clean make for a high seven then a backflip attempt, maybe
not a backflip but something else, clean and lofted, which he
landed but fell on. That would have been a ten. But it also exposed
John’s weakness. Going big in the air has caused serious injury to
the champ. High ankle sprain, ruptured cruciate ligament. At 20
years younger than Kelly it’s hard to see John lasting into his
thirties with the injury toll already mounting. All that scar
tissue has a way of catching up to you.
It happened on a big set wave. As Kolohe said, the potential to
do the biggest airs ever seen was present. Huge wedge sections,
oncoming breeze, massive crowd on the beach. A very tempting
scenario. John put it up into space and then let it go. He said
later it was the initial impact as he hit the take-off ramp that
caused a serious pain on the previously injured knee. That does not
sound good, indicating instability in the knee joint. He limped up
the beach with a hang-dog look and ten minutes to go.
Ten minutes for the Avoca Jesus to get a low six. Ten long
minutes. He spiked a small wave for a small score. A minute and
fifty and a single set wave detonated on the melon. Board snapped
in two and Jesus was left gesticulating for, who?….God? A jet ski?
Either could not rescue him.
Gabby came out pricking and prodding and jabbing at smaller
waves under the gaze of an ashen-faced Charlie. Unlike Jordy he
could not stick airs. “He’ll go to turns” I thought. I love the way
he shifts gears in a heat. A worshipful crowd bathed in the holy
light, Bourez surfed like a drunken prophet, like the ancient king
in a Rumi poem who has “let go of the reins” in the tavern.
The crowd surged in behind Medina and you could almost feel the
power shift from the anglocentric world to the Latin.The energy
flowed through the ether into homes thousands of miles away. It was
a moment of pure Hegelian history: a new form of life had
progressively undermined the old and had now replaced it.
The transition was almost complete. It’s up to Medina now to
join the circle tomorrow.
Oi Rio Pro Men’s Round of 16 (Round 4)
Results:
Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 17.84 DEF. Kelly Slater (USA) 14.83
Heat 2: Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 13.17 DEF. Joan Duru (FRA) 10.83
Heat 3: Frederico Morais (PRT) 12.83 DEF. Michael Rodrigues (BRA)
7.43
Heat 4: Julian Wilson (AUS) 14.00 DEF. Jesse Mendes (BRA) 13.60
Heat 5: John John Florence (HAW) 12.66 DEF. Wade Carmichael (AUS)
10.33
Heat 6: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 15.53 DEF. Griffin Colapinto (USA)
9.67
Heat 7: Kolohe Andino (USA) 14.07 DEF. Deivid Silva (BRA) 11.53
Heat 8: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 14.43 DEF. Michel Bourez (FRA)
9.27
Oi Rio Pro Men’s Quarterfinal Matchups:
QF 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) vs. Kanoa Igarashi (JPN)
QF 2: Frederico Morais (PRT) vs. Julian Wilson (AUS)
QF 3: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Jordy Smith (ZAF)
QF 4: Kolohe Andino (USA) vs. Gabriel Medina (BRA)
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Open Thread: Comment Live, Oi Rio Pro Round
of Sixteen!
By Chas Smith
Filipe Toledo escorted to contest by military
police!
It’s on and live and Kelly Slater x Filipe
Toledo are in the water, Pottz is jabbering excitedly, Renato
Hickel is telling the fans at home that Filipe Toledo had to be
escorted to the event site under the protection of military
police.
That is how thrilled everyone is.
Are you that thrilled?
You should be. It’s Saturday morning in America and all real
sports, besides baseball, are finished for the year.
Baseball and professional surfing.
As Brazilian as caipirinha.
More boozy than apple pie.
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Every heat is gold for Kelly now but makes an
existential decision at the end of the year harder. Ensconced in
the Top Ten at 47 after a last place finish at the Gold Coast is…
mindblowing. With J-Bay, Teahupoo and Pipe ahead as well as his own
surf tub event a top five finish is likely.
Oi Rio Pro, Day Two: “Kelly won ugly, which
was beautiful!”
By Longtom
Every heat is gold for Kelly now but makes an
existential decision at the end of the year harder…
Yeah look, sorry about the paltry report last night,
still getting my specs in on the night shift. I’m very out
of shape on the all-nighters.
Two am and the grey matter was nothing but panicked mush.
Realised now why I haven’t watched Brazil: it’s on in the middle
of the night on the other side of the world. Calling Slater loose
and jerky was very poor form. Very poor.
What I meant to say was how much more fun it is watching,
observing, analysing pro surfing this year with him around. Him and
John John. Pro surfing is the definition of one step forwards, two
steps back. Most change for the fan is in the negative. We lose
Trestles and Cloudbreak, get our data mined on Facebook; we get a
format change that makes the front half of the comp an irrelevant
War and Peace that drags on for an eternity. They did make one
inarguable step forwards this season though and that is
over-lapping heats.
A drunken, belligerent lineup that was like a transgendered
beachbreak version of Bells Beach, except worse and with a trickier
close-out to hit.
Today we got 16 of them, which accounted for round three, in
some ways the most important round of the event, in a drunken,
belligerent lineup that was like a transgendered beachbreak version
of Bells Beach, except worse and with a trickier close-out to
hit.
Two surfers on the roster traditionally decipher the drunken
ramblings of incoherent beachbreak better than their peers: John
Florence and Gabe Medina.
Is that a skill or a mental faculty?
Can you relate?
I find them the least relatable conditions.
A recent summer of incoherent beachbreak made me want to quit
surfing.
Both stepped up and got the job done. John with composure and
patience against wildcard Krystian Kymerson, great-great Grandson
of Stalingrad tank commander Krymov Kymerson. Judges paid brutal
force applied in two turn combinations with the close-out hit the
most favoured. John punched his half way through the 40-minute heat
and cruised down the final stretch.
Big men got the big scores. Wade Carmichael and Jordan Smith
punched close-outs hard for the biggest of the day. Jordy claiming
later he was glad to have found some space and to have escaped the
clutches of “pus-ey little waves”. He also laid down a challenge to
the pride and passion of the Brazilian surf nation with an ominous
warning of being ready to claim in whatever fashion was
required.
Medina’s victory was a bizarre affair with a tight, tricky
ending. He cruised to a solid lead over Jaddy with perfect flow in
smaller inside waves outside of the main priority. His best wave
being aptly described by Barton as a “piece of art on an odd little
wave”. Then sat outside and went to sleep.
Holding priority he gave Jaddy his best wave of the heat and was
then forced to roll in on the whitewater on a nothing righthander
to defend a slender lead at the death. It was strange and
inconclusive but if Gabe does mount some kind of title defence in
the back half of the year that heat will be enormously
critical.
Kelly won ugly, which was beautiful. Scrapping around with a
broken chair in a bar-room brawl of a heat where no-one really
landed anything significant. Seabass got nothing, Kelly made one
close-out for a high five and laid down a three-turn combo on a
very funky wave for a low six.
Every heat is gold for Kelly now but makes an existential
decision at the end of the year harder. Ensconced in the Top Ten at
47 after a last place finish at the Gold Coast is… mindblowing.
With J-Bay, Teahupoo and Pipe ahead as well as his own surf tub
event a top five finish is likely.
Would he retire still in contention for a title? That is not the
Kelly we know.
Filipe showed no signs of a confidence deficit after being
rogered at the Box. Snapped his board in half on an air attempt
first wave then tracked down two clean lefts for the second highest
heat total of the day. Lucky for him the next comp was homeground
and not Teahupoo where fragile confidence might have undergone a
more rigorous assessment.
In a sense round three has become the true losers round. Round
two, the so-called elimination round, where only four surfers take
a long walk off a short plank has become tokenistic. Losers in
round three will not requalify, will not challenge.
Which means Italo’s loss, like his early losses last year will
probably cruel a late season run. Even though the lineup confused
the worlds best, Kelly claiming he was a “little confused on where
to sit”, Italo’s loss was still confounding.
He came out like a feisty bantam rooster throwing aggro little
rail turns everywhere. It looked like one of those heats where he
would catch a lot of waves and build and build.
Then he disappeared. Freddy Morais seemed to be in the heat by
himself and rail roaded him by a comfortable margin.
Hard to see much, if anything, carrying over from todays mess
into more manageable conditions tomorrow. Yago Dora looked the best
of day one and couldn’t make any sense of it today.
No form guide is applicable like it was at Bells and Margaret
River.
Maybe a dark horse, maybe Deivid Silva?
Are there official odds on Kelly’s retirement? I think if he
makes the quarters tomorrow they must lengthen.
Oi Rio Pro Men’s Elimination Round (Round 2)
Results:
Heat 1: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 12.77 DEF. Kolohe Andino (USA) 12.00,
Alex Ribeiro (BRA) 7.33
Heat 2: Krystian Kymerson (BRA) 11.43 DEF. Jordy Smith (ZAF) 9.67,
Adrian Buchan (AUS) 7.54
Heat 3: Conner Coffin (USA) 14.83 DEF. Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 10.73,
Peterson Crisanto (BRA) 7.54
Heat 4: Wade Carmichael (AUS) 11.77 DEF. Jack Freestone (AUS) 9.10,
Jeremy Flores (FRA) 8.46
Oi Rio Pro Men’s Round of 32 (Round 3)
Results:
Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 14.26 DEF. Adriano de Souza (BRA)
10.27
Heat 2: Kelly Slater (USA) 11.93 DEF. Sebastian Zietz (HAW)
8.20
Heat 3: Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 13.67 DEF. Ricardo Christie (NZL)
10.37
Heat 4: Joan Duru (FRA) 12.40 DEF. Owen Wright (AUS) 10.13
Heat 5: Frederico Morais (PRT) 13.27 DEF. Italo Ferreira (BRA)
7.13
Heat 6: Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 12.06 DEF. Willian Cardoso (BRA)
6.20
Heat 7: Julian Wilson (AUS) 8.90 DEF. Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 6.10
Heat 8: Jesse Mendes (BRA) 11.60 DEF. Conner Coffin (USA) 11.10
Heat 9: John John Florence (HAW) 11.83 DEF. Krystian Kymerson (BRA)
9.24
Heat 10: Wade Carmichael (AUS) 12.37 DEF. Yago Dora (BRA) 11.40
Heat 11: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 15.83 DEF. Jack Freestone (AUS)
11.00
Heat 12: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 10.73 DEF. Ryan Callinan (AUS)
7.57
Heat 13: Kolohe Andino (USA) 12.87 DEF. Soli Bailey (AUS) 8.56
Heat 14: Deivid Silva (BRA) 14.83 DEF. Seth Moniz (HAW) 8.33
Heat 15: Michel Bourez (FRA) 11.44 DEF. Caio Ibelli (BRA) 6.10
Heat 16: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 13.00 DEF. Jadson Andre (BRA)
10.90
Oi Rio Pro Men’s Round of 16 (Round 4) Matchups:
Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) vs. Kelly Slater (USA)
Heat 2: Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) vs. Joan Duru (FRA)
Heat 3: Frederico Morais (PRT) vs. Michael Rodrigues (BRA)
Heat 4: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Jesse Mendes (BRA)
Heat 5: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Wade Carmichael (AUS)
Heat 6: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Griffin Colapinto (USA)
Heat 7: Kolohe Andino (USA) vs. Deivid Silva (BRA)
Heat 8: Michel Bourez (FRA) vs. Gabriel Medina (BRA)
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros