Tahiti Pro, Day 3: “Medina imperiously calm; close to perfect; Kelly Slater too cute for judges!”

Six-to-ten-foot waves distended nostrils and quickened hearts in the best contest day at Teahupoo in five years…

Going to the land of nod last night knowing I/we would be waking up to a day of eight-foot Teahupo’o broadcast live made me feel quite deliriously excited.

I didn’t need to neck any sleeping pills like Filipe Toledo, but then I wasn’t one who would be paddling out with the whole world watching.

If the Tour disintegrated under the weight of its own contradictions and all we were left with were a couple of speciality events: Chopes, Pipe, maybe something in Indo it wouldn’t be the worst outcome in the world.

Long as we got to watch it live.

Gotta say though, the draw did not excite as much. Lot of one-sided encounters on there, some of which did run to script while some turned out to be almost surreal in their reversals of expected fortune.

Barton Lynch was enthusiastic to a fault in the post-show wrap claiming despite the evil nature of the surf, “The world’s best surfers had a dig” The missing qualifier “some of” was starkly visible to all, except the commentary team.

Only the most timid observations of reality were allowed to escape, if at all.

Overlapping heats seemed a disastrous choice for the day. Confusion was the dominant theme, in the judging panel, in the broadcast, amongst the watching fans. Too many waves were missed, commentary had no clue what was going on, it was a mess.

Inconceivably, the WSL looked to have shot the one Golden Goose that managed to fly into its orbit this year. I never thought I would utter these words about pro surfing: there was too much action.

Riding forwards on a longer board, Italo sat deeper than Adriano, surfed on the foam ball and threaded multiple huge carverns perfectly. I am sure one of his eight-point rides was critically underscored. Maybe all of them.

Italo Ferreira and Adriano De Souza were the first to give the day some shape and an epic flavour. I’m still deeply baffled by how Italo lost.

Riding forwards on a longer board, Italo sat deeper, surfed on the foam ball and threaded multiple huge carverns perfectly. I am sure one of his eight-point rides was critically underscored.

Maybe all of them.

The final exchange was emblematic of the day: the second wave of the set was the heat-winning wave and De Souza rode deep and long on a …..what do we call it now in the Wavepool Era? Twenty-foot wave?

It was a surreal close, commentators had brought in a babe to discuss the coral gardening. Barton spent half the heat engaged in WSL talking points while the best heat of the year played out in front of him.

Barton’s worst day on tour as a commentator. He missed the other high point of the day. Medina’s ten. More on that later.

De Souza could not be denied.

But even after rewatching I still can’t reconcile the Italo loss after one of the most incredible performances ever seen at Chopes. That he was beaten while another surfer in the concurrent over-lapping heat barely caught a wave seems a criminal travesty.

In round fucking three! Wasn’t the seeding round supposed to fix this?

De Souza claimed a spiritual advisor in the departed Ricardo Dos Santos accompanied him to his epic win.

His advice, according to De Souza,“You have to treat Teahupo’o like you treat your wife” was wisely left uninterrogated by Rosie Hodge in the presser.

Cardoso could not take off. Ricardo Cristie struggled. Wade Carmichael was a deer in the headlights. Thirty-five minutes of a heat passed without Yago Dora molesting a wave,or seducing it ala De Souza. This caused the mellow Williams to declaim without a trace of irony, “Some guys are a little better than the other guys”.

Do not get me wrong. I do not judge.

CJ Hopgood in an impassioned commentary performance of mostly unintelligible gibberish said when you surf Teahupoo the “the black pearl is right behind you” and that you get to find out “what’s on the other side of your fears.

Real things, as it turns out. Shallow reef to be slammed into. Death, serious injury. As a rec surfer who has looked down into the belly of the beast as those west bowls bend at you and drain the reef, it is the most frightening reality imaginable.

Brother had everything to overcome in his heat to hold the yellow jersey. His own fear, the hometown crowd baying for his seventeen-year-old Tahitian opponent, the waves themselves.

He did not let himself down.

He surfed a smart, brave heat. And then with a minute remaining the broadcast inadvertently captured a moment of pure pathos. Vaast paddled right past Andino and Andino’s expression of startled, unknowing arrogance as he watched him segued perfectly into Vaast stroking into a blue cement mixer which delivered a wild foam ball victory ride for the wildcard. It was beautiful sport.

The yellow jersey now shifted to Filipe Toledo, if he could somehow prove the naysayers wrong and make sense of full throated Teahupo’o.

He did, barely, against Jesse Mendes. It was obvious he wanted nothing to do with it. Christ, the man was coming down from sleeping pills! You want to be up to surf Chopes, not down. He could not force his way in there and wrangle a bomb.

With a heat almost spent Pip did get behind one and threaded it. Judges were generous but as Pip paddled back to the boat the look he gave Tatiana Weston-Webb clothed in a black Thrasher T-shirt was not one of machismo, but more of sheepish acknowledgment that he had done just enough to get the job done.

Ace Buchan in the booth spent the heat throwing shade at both men. On Jesse Mendes he noted that Jesse was the defending Triple Crown champion but was yet to really pack a bomb. He wryly observed that Toledo “needs to be deeper”.

With a heat almost spent Pip did get behind one and threaded it. Judges were generous but as Pip paddled back to the boat the look he gave Tatiana Weston-Webb clothed in a black Thrasher T-shirt was not one of machismo, but more of sheepish acknowledgment that he had done just enough to get the job done.

In the presser, as he accepted the accolade of the yellow jersey he said “I’m blessed” four times in one sentence. He did not look like a man blessed. He looked shell shocked and half dead.

Jeremy Flores in a helmet was magnificent, but that is not newsworthy. Same with his fellow helmutee Owen Wright. Both were almost insanely competent and hungry for the bombs.

The surprise was Kelly Slater.

After watching all day the danger was Kelly would get too cute and try and showboat his way to scores. Which he duly did, and which judges duly lowballed.

The second wave of the set had been the heat winner. He took the first. Jack Freestone was solid, just drew a clean line from A to B under the axe.

Kelly needed one bomb to make the heat.

The set came.

Kelly, after spending most of his commentary session the other day detailing how to make the drop, could not get in. He pin-dropped from the top. And watched as Jack Freestone rode the second wave to a heat-winning score.

Either wave successfully ridden would have been Kelly’s heat winner.

After calling Kelly and Italo on day one it was a bitter pill to swallow to see both gone while a third of the tour floundered like toddlers in a wading pool.

It was pro surfing overload but somehow the Bourez/Owen Wright heat cut through effortlessly. Owen rode a million deep tubes. Bourez was crushed beneath a collapsing west wedge that was so, so heavy.

On the ski ride back over dry reef into the lagoon he looked like a floppy puppet.

He can’t come back from that, can he?

Minutes later he paddled into an even heavier one. A legit tow wave. Impossibly heavy. He needed a high Nine. They gave him a 9.43. For a fucking tow wave! If there was ever a noble defeat this was it.

Moniz and Ibelli were grand. They get short-changed here in the hope tomorrow gives them the coverage they deserve.

The final word has to go to Medina. He was imperiously calm and composed in dispatching Zeke Lau. Against a hard-charging Colapinto in heat six of round four he was much much closer to perfect.

He rode two waves separated by more than 30 minutes.

The first to open: a deep, travelling tube, weaving in and around the foam ball. A type of tube-riding he specialises in.

The second a much bigger throatier set. Delaying the bottom turn for a micro-second put as deep as humanly possible. The foam ball pushed him around and almost threw him to disaster. He emerged and splayed ten fingers out to the judges with a shrug. The only thing unseemly about it was the time taken for judges to award a perfect ten.

And Barton missing it while an interview with Flores played on the split. He missed it! The two peak moments of a day of days missed by the booth, for shame.

A day where almost too much pro surfing was barely enough.

Thats a long wrap and so much has been left out.

Much to discuss etc.