Celebrate: Kanoa Igarashi on track to
become “the face of the 2020 Olympic Games!”
By Chas Smith
"He's very talented..."
Ooooooee what would we have done the last few
days if not for the Brothers’ George? Sam
and Matt
brought the heat, burning right through typical post-World Surf
League event gloom. I’ve now read both of their fine works and all
the comments and still have no idea what Matt is defending.
Do you?
Can you help me understand?
In other news, the Japanese have been surfing for over 100 years
and Kanoa Igarashi, current world number five, is on track to
become the face of the Olympic Games.
All true and I read about it this morning on Japan
Today. Here, I’ll give you a taste.
A total of 26 sports applied for inclusion in the 2020 Games
and in August of 2016, five new sports, including surfing , were
added.
The IOC has also approved the inclusion of surfing on the
program for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Surfing in Japan dates back over 100 years.
As detailed by Legendary Surfers, most Japanese-style wooden
boats at the time had removable floor boards that were called
Itago. When the boats were beached after fishing, the children of
the fishermen took the Itago out of the boats and used them as body
boards. This practice was commonly known as Itago-nori, meaning
“Floor board riding.”
Japan, meanwhile, is hoping to get a boost from Kanoa
Igarashi. Born in Huntington Beach, California, the 21-year-old
Igarashi recently received dual citizenship in order to compete for
his ancestral homeland in 2020. He has become one of the top
surfers in the World Surf League and will be a medal contender next
year.
In May, Igarashi became the first Japanese surfer to win an
elite Championship Tour event when he topped the men’s competition
at the Corona Bali Protected.
As host, Japan will get one automatic berth in each of the
20-surfer draws and will have a chance to earn another.
“He’s very talented, I think he could become a face of the
games,” Fasulo said.
So, first, I would like to officially change the word “surfing”
here to also be “floor board riding.” I think it is more accurate
and also more poetic. A rare win-win.
Second, does it surprise you that Kanoa Igarashi is current
world number five and that Kolohe Andino is current world number
one? When I was laying out my projected midway rankings ahead of
the 2019 season I did not have it like this, to be very honest.
Professional floor board riding never ceases to confound and
delight.
Third, are you still not on the Kanoa Igarashi train? As
sometime BeachGrit contributor Jamie Tierney eloquently puts,
“to know Kanoa is
necessarily to love him.” I think he will make a fine
face of the Olympic Games and I will do my best to run all the very
cute Japanese commercials he appears in here.
Lastly, one of Kanoa Igarashi’s very strongest events, The U.S.
Open of Floor Board Riding, is set to begin in seven days. Do you
have plans to go to Huntington Beach? Are you a registered sex
offender?
Just curious.
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High-demand: Surf Ranch sells out “Ultimate
VAL Experience!”
By Chas Smith
But adds another day!
Admit it, when it was revealed that the World
Surf League was opening Surf Ranch for the “Ultimate VAL
Experience” at the low, low price of $3500 per person plus $500
more for one friend (capped at 36 surfers a day) plus $550 – $650
to stay in an Airstream near the lake with video coaching and
croissants you thought, “Hmmmmm.”
Well, while you were thinking, “Hmmmmm” the advanced session
sold right out and can you believe it? Can you believe there are 36
advanced surfers out there splitting $4500 – $4650 for…
3, 1-hour Surf Sessions In water coaching and guidance Video capture of all waves Personalized video review with our coaching staff Equipment education and use of full Firewire demo
quiver Access to wakesurfing sessions throughout the day on our
adjacent 20-acre recreational lake.
To be honest, it’s difficult for me to process. At last check,
flights to Tavarua (from Los Angeles) were running $1000 and
flights to Tahiti the same. Neither Tavarua nor Tahiti have use of
a full Firewire demo quiver included, I suppose.
And in any case, due the popularity, the World Surf League has
decided to add another advanced day for 36 more lucky souls.
Yes…
Due to an overwhelming interest in the Intermediate –
Advanced Progression Session at Surf Ranch, we’re converting July
31st to feature our CT wave profiles that are best suited for
intermediate and advanced surfers.
That brings the current remaining availability to: July 30th Progression Session: Sold Out July 31st Progression Session: Now open to Intermediate –
Advanced
Don’t “Hmmmmm” and miss out again!
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Dear Surfers: “Do we really need to
convince strangers that our sport is spectacular?”
By Matt George
"Is the hopeful financial hysteria of the WSL and
its breathless broadcast and its branding ambitions really us?"
(Editor’s note: Earlier today, the writer Matt George, younger
brother of Sam who wrote yesterday’s opinion piece about surf
commentary, sent me a story with a brief note. “Please post this in
response to Sam’s opinion feature.” I like Matt, alway have. Worked
with him at a surf mag for a year in the early twos. He’s inflated.
He’s boyish. And very macho. The sort of man who’ll shake your hand
so hard you can feel the wires. I think this story is a rebuttal to
yesterday’s comments. I could be wrong etc.)
Surfers,
Read this editorial again carefully.
And slowly.
And twice.
And out loud to yourself.
There is a great deal of love in there.
And unquestioned credibility.
And heaven knows…we need this if it is ever going to work: The
convincing of our credibility to the unbelievers. The one thing our
sport has always fought for and never achieved. All the way back to
the IPS.
Do we really need to convince strangers that our sport is
spectacular? Is our goal a mediocre slot in the corrupt world of
the modern Olympics? Broadcast at 9:45pm EST after the Curling?
Do we really need the money it provides Soccer players? Or NFL
stars? Or Golfers? Money? Branding? Billboards on a freeway?
Beer and Cigarette companies have been doing that since the
60’s. Is that what we need?
The enemy is at the gates, Surfers.
Is the hopeful financial hysteria of the WSL and its breathless
broadcast and its branding ambitions really us?
Are we really more interested in insulting each other with
forgettable pithy remarks online instead of listening to informed
opinions and meditating on our own?
Instead of controlling the destiny of our own unique and
remarkable surfing passion? Is this our forum? Posting like trolls
under the bridge with anonymous, impotent remarks online instead
making the changes that we want as our forefathers did, handing it
to us on a silver platter?
We, the surfers, still own the spirit of our sport.
We, the surfers, still own the vision.
With every wave we ride.
I say do not react, but re-instruct. Online. Instagram.
Facebook. Twitter. Whatever. The brave new world. Ok…So be
brave.
Let us form our own place in this world as we always have, but
now with these new platforms of power to reach out. Tell them. Tell
them all. That which we all want the people to really know.
From our doubting parents to the billionaire halls of global
media. Our sport is a wild Mustang. In each of our hearts. You know
it and I know it.
My name is Matt George, and I do not need some silly nickname
online to hide behind.
My name is Matt George and I am right here.
Let’s hear it.
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After the uncertainties of the past few years,
Moore looks happy to be where she is. She’s made her decision. She
wants to be right here, chasing world titles, and she’s ready to
roll with the results, both good and bad. She’s learned resilience
and when an athlete in any sport manages that difficult lesson,
they emerge stronger and much more difficult to defeat than they
ever were before. WSL
Jen See: “The door to a fourth world title
swings open for Carissa Moore!”
By Jen See
Three-time world champ beats Lakey Peterson at
biggish, windy Jeffreys Bay…
Last year I sat across the table from Carissa Moore in a
rented camper van parked in the driveway of a Ventura
duplex. She told me how after she’d struggled to match her
early successes.
She’d been called the next Kelly Slater after winning her first
world title at age 19. Then she’d lost her way in a sport she’d
been set to dominate. After an early round defeat at Huntington
Beach in 2017, she’d flown back to Hawaii uncertain if she really
wanted to continue competing at all.
That’s all behind her now.
After beating a ripping Lakey Peterson in the finals at J-Bay,
Moore has won her first event of the year and taken over the lead
in the world rankings. It’s been four years since Moore last won a
world title, but this season, she’s made the quarterfinals at each
event. In tears after the final, Moore said, she just kept
wondering when the event win would come.
At J-Bay, it finally did.
Moore did not have an easy route to this final. In the
semifinals she faced down teen wonder Caroline Marks, whose career
trajectory in some ways resembles Moore’s own. Early success.
Brilliant talent.
Overnight, a new swell had filled in and with it, came the wind,
which cut spines into the wave’s faces. Spray flew skyward. The
conditions looked tricky and both women started slowly, feeling out
the swell and looking for the right waves.
Moore found her first good score with a six. She looked
controlled, but not pushing as hard as she might. It was a good
start, but you don’t beat Caroline Marks with sixes. Just ask Steph
Gilmore.
During the quarterfinals, Marks thrived on the fast-moving walls
that smaller J-Bay offers. On finals day, the trickier lineup with
its big, wind-blown sections looked to shift the advantage to
Moore.
While Marks showed her trademark smooth railwork and vertical
turns, she got more often got caught behind the sections. The long,
connected strings of turns she needed proved harder to come by. On
a big close-out move that might have won her the heat, Marks
mistimed it and fell.
Moore, meanwhile, steadily worked into the heat. She looked
confident and patient, placing her turns carefully, reading the
wave to perfection. A smooth set of turns netted her an 8.33.
From the commentary booth, Sally Fitzgibbons suggested that
Moore was holding something back, that she still had more powerful
surfing in her. As it turned out, she didn’t need it against Marks,
who could only muster a pair of sixes.
By beating Marks, Moore took over the lead in the rankings. When
Rosy Hodge asked her about the rankings, Moore said that was the
big picture and it wasn’t at the front of her mind. Moore wanted
the event win more than anything.
The semifinal between Lakey Peterson and Malia Manuel offered a
study in contrasts. Manuel brought her characteristically smooth,
controlled style, while Peterson threw down dynamic, fast moving
turns. Manuel put an early six on the board, but her turns lacked
the power that Peterson routinely brings to her surfing. Peterson
threw down a pair of sevens and pushed through to the final.
What a nailbiter this final turned out to be.
The commentary team unanimously picked Peterson to win. I wasn’t
so sure, after seeing Moore’s eight-point ride against Marks.
Either way, the two started the heat uniquely well-matched. The
bigger waves smoothed out Peterson’s style and gave her surfing a
polish it lacked in the quarters. Moore brought the same calm
approach that had delivered her to that moment.
Peterson took an early lead and looked unbeatable. Moore looked
at multiple waves without finding what she wanted. With the long
paddle out, it made sense to be picky. Then Moore strung together a
series of tight turns and punctuated it with a slamming layback. It
was a beautifully surfed wave with a perfect finish. The judges
threw an eight and Moore took the lead.
Peterson now needed a 7.47. Not easy, but not impossible
either.
On her next wave, with thirteen minutes to go, Peterson threw
two turns, and pulled into a massive barrel. If she’d made it
through, that might have ended the heat right then and there.
She didn’t.
Moore meanwhile found a backup score, a 6.90, thanks to two
solid turns. Though she got stuffed in the barrel, her turns were
enough to give her a score.
Now Peterson needed an 8.21.
Quite suddenly, the Californian’s task had become impossible.
Inside six minutes to go, Peterson found a screamer and surfed the
hell out of it, but it wasn’t enough.
As she paddled back out, the clock ticked down to nothing.
On her final wave, Moore stood tall, riding the highline, that
wondrous feeling, weightless. She’d done it, defeating Peterson,
everyone’s favorite to win this final.
And at last, she’d found the win that had eluded her so far this
season.
After the uncertainties of the past few years, Moore looks happy
to be where she is. She’s made her decision. She wants to be right
here, chasing world titles, and she’s ready to roll with the
results, both good and bad.
She’s learned resilience and when an athlete in any sport
manages that difficult lesson, they emerge stronger and much more
difficult to defeat than they ever were before.
If Moore won early in her career on talent alone, now she’s
married that talent to a renewed focus and a rock-solid
determination.
The door to a fourth world title has now swung open for her.
J-Bay Women’s Final Results:
1 – Carissa Moore (HAW) 15.47
2 – Lakey Peterson (USA) 14.60
Women’s Semifinal Results:
Heat 1: Carissa Moore (HAW) 14.33 DEF. Caroline Marks (USA)
12.67
Heat 2: Lakey Peterson (USA) 15.27 DEF. Malia Manuel (HAW)
11.00
All week there has been bitching and moaning
about the lack of variety and risk on the backhand. Medina shoved
that complaint sideways where the sun don't shine on his winning
ride. It had high hooks, body extended carves in the lip, lip line
floaters across collapsing sections, jagged super quick speed
connecting snaps and a deep double tube ride. Again, a ten would
have been appropriate. WSL
J-Bay Finals: Medina vanquishes Italo;
shoves criticism “where the sun don’t shine!”
By Longtom
An epic day. A superlative day.
Caveat emptor: if things get a little fuzzed
out in the following wrap please call BS at your leisure: it’s been
a big week, late night, pumping surf day after day, days in court,
too many beers etc etc.
It’s possible a more sober assessment may be needed tomorrow
morning in the comments after viewing what I think we can all agree
on was an epic Finals day at…. what? Four-to-eight-foot J-Bay?
Accusations of swallowing the Kanoa Kool-aid were proven valid.
I’m a soft touch, love a hustle being laid on me. First thing I do
if I see Donny or Maz Cow in the streets of Byron, guys who can’t
keep a roof over their head, is ask them how they are fixed. Peel
off a twenty spot if they look grim. I don’t care what they spend
it on. Even Kanoa admits the mojo and the trash talk is all a bit
of play acting but we’re so starved for theatre and rivalry I’ll
skol it all night long.
Kenny just didn’t have the legs to match up the talk in his QF
against Italo Ferreira. Italo was tactically superior, starting
strongly , catching fewer waves on a big, blustery day where energy
usage was at a premium and gave the judges exactly what they had so
clearly demonstrated they wanted to see. Set waves ridden from
beginning to end, starting strong and ending strong. Incomplete
rides, no matter the work done, did not factor in. Italo rode four
waves, all over six. Kanoa could only breach the six mark on one
occasion, his first ride.
That mental image of how judges wanted to see J-Bay ridden , and
thus scored was meticulously laid down in the opening heat of the
day with Medina and Owen Wright. Medina’s nine seemed a little high
at the time, but in the context of the day the big opening turn,
lip punches vertical speed turns and a tube-ride that he made were
a perfect exposition of what judges wanted. There could really be
no excuse for any surfer in the draw about what would score
big.
That heat was also incredible for the repeated symmetry of
Medina’s heats, since the Houdini effort against Ryan Callinan. He
started slow, waited and then finished strong in the back half of
the heat. We spoke about the essentially random nature of the
thirty-minute ocean heat, with it’s baffling and unrepeatable array
of forces and human decisions. Medina’s consistency in repeating
that pattern amidst the chaos seems almost supernatural.
Felipe couldn’t repeat it.
He looked shaky against SeaBass. It took him four rides to get a
six. SeaBass looked to have the superior arsenal of turns, judges
ate up a big vertical lip punch on his best wave. It was only a
late set wave with a mid-wave tube-ride that came from nowhere that
rescued the heat for him. He was well beaten in the semi by Italo
who had the same magic symmetry as Gabe, except in reverse.
Half-way through the semi he put Filipe to sleep with a set wave
that was almost perfect J-Bay backhand surfing. Huge high hooks
with freefall drops and a monster finish that culminated with an
ornate claim that would have made a Balinese finger-dancer green
with envy.
For a man of such froth Italo’s heats were almost tactically
perfect. They started with a strong first wave. A 6.5 against
Kanoa, a 7.67 against Filipe, a 9.10 against Gabe in the Final. Low
wave counts conserved energy and the closing turns were the biggest
of the event, same as the ones he used to crush Bells in the 2018
Final against Fanning.
Half-way through the semi he put Filipe to sleep with a set wave
that was almost perfect J-Bay backhand surfing. Huge high hooks
with freefall drops and a monster finish that culminated with a
most ornate claim that would have made a Balinese finger dancer
green with envy.
That wave quashed an incipient controversy concerning the
previous semi with Kolohe and Medina. Kolohe had looked much more
confident back on the Mayhems and came in with a pre-configured
plan to go to the air, which he attempted on multiple occasions.
One very lateral alley-oop on a smaller wave was low-balled by
judges and instead of going back to the winning template and
jagging a set wave from end to end Kolohe panicked and tried to
repeat the dose on a series of insignificant waves.
Kolohe seems trapped between the instinctual approach needed to
ride a wave and the strategic thinking required to figure out what
the fuck needs to be done to win the heat. Thus, eight years on,
yellow jersey but not a single event win.
He seems trapped between the instinctual approach needed to ride
a wave and the strategic thinking required to figure out what the
fuck needs to be done to win the heat. Thus, eight years on, yellow
jersey but not a single event win.
There was a lot of historical and emotional enmity built up in
Medina’s performance in the final. He wouldn’t say that of course,
“Having fun, he’s an amazing surfer etc” No blame, he does fine for
a second language. But you could see it in the body language, the
facial expressions in the claims. It was payback for the QF loss to
JJF at similar sized Bells, a chance to peg back the 5:1 losing
record against Italo.
Italo did what he did all event. Started like a raging bull.
Laid down a nine.
Gabe did what he did. Started slow. The tactical play was in
full effect. Italo caught three waves. Gabby caught eight. Testing
and teasing short rides to see if they could lead anywhere. The
lineup was now boisterous and hard to handle. Collapsing sections,
big chunks of wave energy that would split off from the main swell
train or come through it in a giant wedge.
It was one of these wedges that Gabe Medina found himself behind
at warp speed on his third wave. He went straight up into it,
whipped it and air dropped back into the bowl, came hard off the
bottom with a serious sling-shot of speed and carved over and
across the collapsing close-outs section.
The biggest close-out turn ever completed? Show me a better
one.
That could have been a ten. His second scoring ride was even
better, more radical, if that’s possible.
All week there has been bitching and moaning about the lack of
variety and risk on the backhand. Medina shoved that complaint
sideways where the sun don’t shine on his winning ride. It had high
hooks, body extended carves in the lip, lip line floaters across
collapsing sections, jagged super quick speed connecting snaps and
a deep double tube ride. Again, a ten would have been
appropriate.
A soggy Charlie, stripping down in the rain, almost went
apoplectic calling for a ten.
In the end that left Italo comboed. Comboed!
With the Italo hoodoo dealt with and JJF out the last remaining
barrier to a Medina back to back Title has been removed. I know the
Brazilians find it appropriate to thank God for victory, I would
like to ask the same God on behalf of all of us sinners, if he is
still listening, to send us ten foot surf for Teahupoo.
Question: Can you remember a single one of Kolohe’s losing
finals?
J-Bay Men’s Final Results:
1 – Gabriel Medina (BRA) 19.50
2 – Italo Ferreira (BRA) 16.77
J-Bay Men’s Semifinal Results:
SF 1: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 14.30 DEF. Kolohe Andino (USA) 14.00
SF 2: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 17.50 DEF. Filipe Toledo (BRA) 14.00
