Former world number two Jodie Cooper, outside Ballina Court House. | Photo: Chris Speed

Surf-mat rider Mark Thomson guilty of assaulting former world #2 Jodie Cooper

Judge says Thomson "showed arrogance cutting back on (Cooper's) perfect wave."

In news from the Ballina Court House, the surf-mat rider Mark Thomson has been found guilty of assaulting former pro surfer Jodie Cooper.

Cooper, who was the world number two in 1985, said Thomson dropped in on her on a crowded day at Lennox Head (100 surfers in the water) and, after a collision, held her underwater.

“He had reached around and grabbed me and pushed me under the water. He just grabbed me with two hands and just forced me under the water,” Cooper told Ballina Local Court. “It was like he was standing on top of me and as he was doing that he was pulling my hair.”

Cooper says she then feigned drowning to stop the attack.

“Why don’t I just pretend that I drowned? … When I went limp thinking I was dead or drowned or something, that’s when he released,” she told the court.

The judge said she found Thomson to be an unreliable witness (Thompson said Cooper’s account was flawed because he can’t do cutbacks on his mat despite video evidence to the contrary), rejected his version of the event and said he “showed arrogance cutting back on her perfect wave”.

She found that Thomson deliberately and intentionally assaulted Cooper and was the aggressor “at all times.”

Outside the Court House, Cooper said,  I’ve seen a lot of horrible occurrences in the water. There are still a few shifty characters out there who are still doing this…people have to realise you can’t get away with doing these things and think you can get away with it.”

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Brother v Ace in QF2. San Clemente supercharger gonna step up to the world title plate etc? | Photo: WSL

Comment live, open thread: Finals day, Corona Open J-Bay!

Pop a beer! It's natural!

Two nights ago, at approx eight-thirty pm, I had to close my eyes tightly so the tears didn’t ruin my makeup. Every time Kelly loses it’s a spear through my heart. His is a magic love spell that no man can resist.

Today, I predict these winners: Gabriel (Owen beset by mystery illness shortly afterwards), Kolohe (He’ll start slow and slinky, like a spider doing the creepy crawl up to its catch), Filipe (the devil will claim SeaBass) and Italo (gave my kid a board as a present).

In the women’s, Caz, by sheer force of reo numbers and Lakey, who can absorb any sort of evil on the face.

Click here to watch.

Comment, as you see fit, below.

Men’s Quarterfinal Matchups:
QF 1: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Gabriel Medina (BRA)
QF 2: Kolohe Andino (USA) vs. Adrian Buchan (AUS)
QF 3: Filipe Toledo (BRA) vs. Sebastian Zietz (HAW)
QF 4: Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) vs. Italo Ferreira (BRA)

Women’s Semifinal Matchups:
SF 1: Caroline Marks (USA) vs. Carissa Moore (HAW)
SF 2: Malia Manuel (HAW) vs. Lakey Peterson (USA)

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Having pretty much invented the art form I can claim with confidence that when it comes to live surf contest commentary, I know what I’m talking about. So here’s some advice, from a world-weary gray beard, so to speak, to our new breed of mic jockeys.

Sam George: “I invented surf commentary as art form!”

So here's a little advice for Joe, Pottz, Ron, Barton, Peter and Rosy…

Being one of the few, apparently, who’ve been staying up late (on the West Coast, at least) to check in on the 2019 Corona Open J-Bay I was again struck by sharply contrasting elements of the WSL broadcast: the quality of the coverage, especially the replays, and the inanity of the commentary.

Yeah, I know, listening to Joe Turpel recite love letters to the Top 40 live on air, heat after heat after heat, makes me want to stuff a wad of Fu in my ears, too.

But in regards to the commentary, and considering the tone of BeachGrit’s more typical criticism of the hapless World Surf League, which generally runs towards clever, I was moved to provide a more informed critique for those of its fan base who, along with the ‘tit clicks’ and sarcastic Chas Smith musings, might enjoy some actual perspective with their daily dose of snark.

And I’m just the guy to provide it, seeing as how, along with my brother Matt, I did the first, blow-by-blow (or more appropriately wave-by-wave) live commentary at a professional surf contest, way back at the 1984 Stubbies Pro held at Oceanside.

Up until that time surf contest commentary was rarely elevated beyond, “Cheyne Horan, please return your jersey to the beach marshal. Cheyne, return your jersey” and “Red’s up and riding”, even when red happened to be four-time world champion Mark Richards.

Oh sure, during the very first Stubbies Pro, held at Burleigh Heads in 1977, contest organizer and erstwhile drama student Peter Drouyn (what, you thought that Westerly Windina act was something new?) called a few of the latter heats with a spot-on impersonation of a Melbourne Cup horse race announcer. Good for a few laughs, but by the next year “Bloody Bill” Bolman, who took the helm at the Stubbies event, was using the amplified voice to urge spunky Gold Coast sheilas to show us their tits, while at the Rip Curl Bells event booth guest Terry Fitzgerald was using the mic to call sets for rookie team riders like Steve Wilson and Derek Hynd, sublimely unconcerned that everyone on the bluffs could hear exactly what he was doing.

Amusing, yes, informative, no.

Surf commentary got no more sophisticated as the pro tour progressed into the 1980s, which is why, in an attempt to justify a tenuous sponsorship arrangement, my brother Matt and I convinced the Stubbies execs to let us do actual live commentary at their ’84 event, leaving the jersey assignments to the beach marshals and the “show us your tits” stuff to the pros in their sponsor’s tents.

This we did, from the first heat to the last, and continued to so do for several years after, wielding the mic at a variety of big time events, from the Op Pro at Huntington Beach (where I first coined the term “paddle battle”, thank you) to the Gotcha Pro in Hawaii (including commentating the ancillary bikini contest and subsequent near riot) and the Spur Steak Ranch Surfabout in Capetown, South Africa (where I was actually paid in Spur Burgers with monkey gland sauce.)

In every case, focusing on providing surf fans with perspective on what they were watching, not simply describing what they were seeing. Which, when you get right down to it, is the entire point of sport’s commentary.

Did I eventually get tired of hearing my own voice, yammering away at the efficacy of the Huntington Hop (I actually stole that one from Tom Curren, but made it my own through relentless repetition) and explaining the priority rule for the umpteenth time? Naturally, and I’m sure many others did, as well. I’ll certainly cop to that. But having pretty much invented the art form I can claim with confidence that when it comes to live surf contest commentary, I know what I’m talking about. So here’s some advice, from a world-weary gray beard, so to speak, to our new breed of mic jockeys.

JOE: You have the job, mate. Had it for years. No need to suck up to the powers that be by continually extoling the virtues of the tour and its participants. Some actual critique would be nice, too, as in stop describing awkward tail-drifts as carving turns and blown finishes as timely exits. And while you’re at it, there’s no need to gush over every single competitor like you’re hoping they’ll hear you and invite you to their latest clip launch party. You’ve got one of the coolest jobs in pro surfing. Invite them to your party.

MARTIN: It’s simple. If you’re going to be a commentator you can’t come at it from the perspective of some dude in the stands, downing his boerewors with a Castle Lager and cheering for every good ride. Cut out the oohing and aahing. Your job isn’t to convince us that these guys and gals are good surfers — that’s their job. And c’mon, Pottz, you know good surfing when you see it. You invented a lot of it. When they kook out, call it out. You were world champ, for fucks sake. Your legacy is safe.

RONNIE: Though you’re too young to have attended the 1977 Stubbies, you’ve obviously picked a page from the Drouyn playbook, delivering the blow-by-blow in a breathless, hyperbolic rush. Which is great at offsetting Turpel’s sleep-inducing monotone and Pott’s frequent fanboy inarticulation. But you might consider taking it down a few notches, just now and then, to let us hear what you’re seeing, not simply telling us what we’re watching. You’ve got the cred. Use it.

BARTON: The most fun to listen to, as well as the most informative in terms of technique and strategy. But as the second world champ on the commentary team you’ve earned the right to be openly critical and well as appropriately supportive of today’s pros with a little less bemusement, a bit less suppressed chuckling, at the current crop’s travails. They’re serious out there. You were, too. Let your commentary reflect that.

PETER: I’ll just say this: Try not to sound so surprised that someone’s asking your opinion, and being so apologetic when it’s unflattering. You’re the biggest badass on the team. On the whole tour, for that matter. Act like it.

ROSY HODGE: Don’t change a thing. You’re absolutely adorable.

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Kelly Slater: “I like the option where everyone stops paying taxes!”

Current World number 7 foments revolution!

Did you take the eleven time champion, wave pool technology co-creator and current world number seven Robert Kelly Slater as an incendiary revolutionary? A burn-it-all-to-the-ground idealist? A man willing to push the masses into an uprising that tilts the very balance of power?

I didn’t.

And if I’m quite honest, I always considered Kelly a stone-cold, bald-faced, opportunist. A man who sees the angles, smells the blood, knows how to position himself exactly like he knows how to position himself at tricky-to-read maxing Pipeline and come out victorious.

Robert Kelly Slater is a student, an expert, but only an expert at surfing, or so I’ve always thought.

I’m indifferent to Outerknown but don’t see the real economic play in an ecological, high price-point surf brand. I had a case of Purps in my garage when we launched BeachGrit some four years ago and drank one while gagging. K-grip was never good (buy Octopus here!) and Kelly Slater surfboards are… I can’t say.

I’ve never actually surfed one.

Are they good? Epic? I don’t doubt but also don’t know.

More importantly, I’m writing a book on Islamic fundamentalism right now and ooooooooee. Rough. Fundamentalism is not what you’d call a “marketable literary enterprise” but to hell with those, right?

Right?

To hell with anything not directly tied to the machine.

Right?

Maybe not.

For Robert Kelly Slater, the man I considered immune to absurd heart tugs, is calling for revolution on Joe Rogan’s Instagram page. A tax-free revolution contra the popular notion that we should all storm Area 51, a U.S. military installation in the Nevada desert.

I honestly don’t know what any of this about but do like the “option where everyone stops paying taxes.”

What do you think?

Are you in?

Will you follow the world’s most successful living surfer to jail as a form of popular rebellion?

More as the story develops!

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Longtom: “With the women on full pay do they need baby-food scores fed to them like mashed banana?”

Exhibit A: Carissa Moore's 9.5 vs Filipe Toledo's 9.43…

Women’s Sport is hotter than fish grease. Pro leagues have popped up everywhere in Australia, pretty sure it’s happening in Europe and the Americas too.

Megan Rapinoe would be elected Prez of the USA if she ran against Trump in the 2020 election after winning the World Cup. Nothing but blue sky ahead for women surfers with pro careers in their sights.

Australian male pro surfing is circling the drain; the gals are dominating. 

In the last few days in between J-Bay and pumping surf at my home point I’ve visited the Skullcandy Grom Comp. Girls shredding everywhere, huge girl energy, everywhere you look girls are taking over.

You can’t deny the success of the investment Natasha Ziff, co-waterperson of the Year 2018, has made in Women’s Pro surfing. Three months ago, I watched a seventeen-year-old Floridian girl walk away from onshore 2ft D-Bah with a cheque for a hundred grand US in her hand.

WSL has made a gamble to put itself on the right side of history and so far the mainstream media has gobbled it up. It might turn out to be the smartest move pro surfing has ever made in it’s topsy turvy  forty-five-year history.

The most stunning aspect of the Founders Cup last May was how close or non-existent the gap between Gilmore, Wright, Moore and the top men was in the basin. Steph was the most watchable of all the surfers, male or female. Easily eclipsing, on that day, John John Florence. These aren’t value judgements, just facts of the matter.

The disparity between pay cheques between men and women has gone. The performance gap has not, but it’s closing. The most stunning aspect of the Founders Cup last May was how close or non-existent the gap between Gilmore, Wright, Moore and the top men was in the basin. Steph was the most watchable of all the surfers, male or female. Easily eclipsing, on that day, John John Florence. These aren’t value judgements, just facts of the matter. 

WSL now feels confident in an ever closer integration of mens and womens events. They share the same contest windows, and the same eyeballs. Both live and online. The days of a separate Tour schedule are almost over, apart from legacy events like Pipeline and waves still considered too gnarly like Teahupoo. They share the same audience, the same prizemoney, the same lineups, the same criteria but to even the most casual viewer the scale used to put a number on their rides is wildly different.

I said last night that it was a lack of capacity that stopped me watching more women’s pro surfing and that is true. But there is more. After watching six hours of men surfing and then in the same lineup with the same judging panel the numbers thrown at the women seem ridiculously inflated.

I said last night that it was a lack of capacity that stopped me watching more women’s pro surfing and that is true. But there is more. After watching six hours of men surfing and then in the same lineup with the same judging panel the numbers thrown at the women seem ridiculously inflated. 

Steph’s two sixes would be fours or maybe fives. Caz Marks’ eight would be more like a six. The most glaring example was Carissa Moore’s 9.5 from her quarter-final with Johanne Defay. A good wave, a great wave. Three nice turns, a fun little tube-ride.

When we put side by side with Filipe Toledo’s 9.43 opener for his heat against the Panda the difference is stark. Staggering. Every variety of top turn and power carve on display with a strong ending. 

Why the discrepancy? With the women on full pay do they really need the babyfood scores fed to them like mashed banana? Is it not disrespectful to their status as athletes and elite level surfers to be so clearly patronised by exactly the same judging panel using the same criteria?

What message does it send to the kiddies, the future?

That we’ll pay you the same but score you differently?

Down at the Oz Grom Comp I watched the best kids of the future. Gals shredding as hard as boyos. What incentive have they got to elevate the level, to future proof the sport if they know they are going to get fed highballed scores for surfing well below the level they are capable of reaching.

Equal pay has been a boon for women’s surfing. Time for an equal judging scale to be applied if the Tours are to co-exist.

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