What kind of sport has two entirely different ways to become a world champion? Surfing, you are such a weirdo.

The ISA world championship event for women is over! Did you even know it had started? I’m going to go ahead and answer for you: you did not.

No shame.

This is a loving, joyful community of surf people who would never shame you. At least, not today. There is always tomorrow.

Scrolling through the round one heat sheets offered a dizzying array of unfamiliar names. I did learn that Claire Bevilacqua, who I had previously thought to be Australian, is now Italian. The Olympics are wondrous in their transformative powers.

Each participating country could send three women to the event. Steph Gilmore, Sally Fitzgibbons, and Nikki van Dijk represented Australia, while Carissa Moore, Courtney Conlogue, and Caroline Marks surfed for the U.S., a sentence that still stutters a bit on the tongue, but we shall overcome.

Lakey Peterson is currently ranked ahead of both Marks and Conlogue, but did not go to Japan. According to the ‘gram, she’s already in Lemoore.

There were a lot of heats.

I’m not going to tell you all about them, because there are far too many. One thing we learned: There are no losers’ rounds in Olympic Surfing. That is far, far too plebeian for such a grand occasion. No, my friends, from now on, the elimination rounds will be known as repechage! Say it together: Repechage! The ISA World Championship event featured ten repechage rounds. I feel smarter already.

The winner. You will want to know about the winner. Sofia Mulánovich won gold ahead of Silvana Lima, Bianca Buitendag, and Carissa Moore.

If you’re wondering what kind of medal you win if you finish fourth like Carissa Moore, it’s copper. Gold, silver, bronze, copper. Now you know. I have seen Olympic medals of all colors, but never a copper medal, so I now have a new ambition.

Mulánovich previously won an ISA world title in 2004 in Ecuador. She is also the 2004 ASP world champion, a title she secured after winning three of the six tour stops that year. Mulánovich remains the only surfer from Peru to win a CT world title, an accomplishment that transformed her into something of a rock star in her home country.

If you’re wondering what kind of medal you win if you finish fourth like Carissa Moore, it’s copper. Gold, silver, bronze, copper. Now you know. I have seen Olympic medals of all colors, but never a copper medal, so I now have a new ambition.

If you’re like Chas, you are probably thinking fuckyeah, Mulánovich is going to the Olympics. She won the ISA world title! Of course, she’s going.

Not. So. Fast.

Mulánovich must win the 2020 ISA world championship in order to qualify for the Olympics. Thanks to the Pan-American Games, Peru has already qualified Daniela Rossi for Tokyo 2020. As a side note and because surfing is a small world, Mulánovich mentored Rossi during her early career.

tl;dr: Winning the Pan-Am Games qualifies you for the Olympics, winning the 2019 ISA world title does not.

Meanwhile, in more Olympic qualifying, four women provisionally punched their tickets to Tokyo this week. If you’re keeping score at home, this is the continental qualifying route. The top finishers from Africa, Oceana, Europe, and Asia each secured an Olympic slot — assuming no one from their home country finishes ahead of them at the 2020 ISA World Championship or in the WCT rankings.

Got that? Yah. I know, you totally got that.

The four lucky Olympic probably qualifiers are: Bianca Buitendag for South Africa, Shina Matsuda from Japan, Ella Williams from New Zealand, and Anat Leilor from Israel, which is considered part of Europe for surfing.

Look, I don’t make the rules here. In an odd twist, all four secure provisional qualification, while placing below winner Mulánovich.

Though Moore is the highest finishing U.S. woman at the ISA event, her qualification for Tokyo remains dependent on her WCT ranking at the end of 2019. The copper medal is a nice souvenir for her trophy chest, but doesn’t play any role in the Olympic selection process.

I’m not sure that it should, but it’s an odd thing to have an event that sorta counts, but sorta doesn’t at all.

This is all totally fine. But you know what’s really keeping me up at night?

Surfing has two different world championship titles. Mulánovich has won three world championships in surfing — two at the ISA world championship and one from the ASP.

What kind of sport has two entirely different ways to become a world champion? Surfing, you are such a weirdo.

In the long run, I suspect this situation will not continue to confound us. For just last week, or maybe it was the week before, the WSL got out of the business of crowning a big wave world champion. When Chas wisely asked Pat O’Connell whether the CT might go the way of the Big-Wave Tour, the answer wasn’t yes. But it was also not a firm no.

It is easy to imagine a future in which the World Surf League runs a series of events and makes media about surfing. It might look something like professional tennis.

ISA would then be in charge of the whole world championship medal business, including the copper.

I never really expected that pro surfing would try to be tennis and Red Bull at the same time.

Weird flex, pro surfing, weird flex.

"We are delighted at the initial level of interest from partners and key stakeholders," says CEO Sophie Goldschmidt.

Heady times around the BeachGrit (official Yellow Jersey Holders of the World Surf Media PT Cruiser Leaderboard) HQ of late.

Great White blood feuds. Alleged wavepool culls. Ratings release webcam parties so wild they’d make the Marquis de Sade beam with pride.

It’s been so heccas, in fact, that we missed some sorta significant news for all the Jaddy Andre enthusiasts out there.

The WSL has announced an apparent overhaul of the QS for next year.

From their website.

“In 2020, the WSL will launch the Challenger Series, a new level of competition that will provide athletes more opportunities at the highest level to qualify for the elite Championship Tour.”

“This is another important step in our evolution. We are delighted at the initial level of interest from partners and key stakeholders for the Challenger Series. We expect the series to further enhance the career path for future CT athletes and to also become commercially positive,” stated CEO Sophie Goldschmidt.

Read more here, and marvel at their ability to say so much while conveying so little.

The 2020 Qualifying Series, the new name for the development and qualification tier of the CT, will feature two primary segments: the Challenger Series (consisting of eight 10,000 point events) and the regular QS tour with its 5000, 3000, 1500 and 1000 events.

Whether the increase in 10,000 events will be offset by a decrease in small ones is not clear.

On face value it’s the equivalent of printing more money in a recession. Increasing the number of 10,000 comps will only decrease their value.

Current wisdom is that around 30,000 points will see you re/qualify for the tour. That number will now jump significantly.

So, what’s changed?

Perhaps the locations are better, you say. Maybe the 10k comps will be held at world-class locations like Indo, Mex, etc.

Not really. The eight venues are Piha, Ballito, Huntington, Pantin, Ericeira, Phillip Island, Haleiwa and Sunset. A smattering of quality in a sea of mediocrity.

Perhaps qualifying tactics will change? Possibly.

Top-tier pros are more likely to focus on the 10k events, which could allow the next rung down more of a chance at the lower queys.

But, I still can’t see that having any impact on who qualifies overall, and it certainly does nothing to address the fact that the CT itself is already more inflated than the Weimar republic.

Why not cut the CT in half? Sixteen competitors, five comps. Make the remaining comps part of the Challenger Series.

Ya? No?

There’s also a glaring omission from the new 10,000 events. Not one in Brazil. Is this…problematic?

Finally, if the name of the new series rings a bell, it’s ‘cause they stole it from second-tier tennis tour.

Just how prescient was Bobby Martinez?

 

Misses half of heat, borrows board from Filipe Toledo, pulls on a pair of denim shorts, wins.

I don’t think I need to publicly state, again, my ongoing fixation with the Brazilian title contender Italo Ferreira.

(Read my paean to Italo here.)

If you’ve yet to fall under Italo’s spell, his miracle round one heat at the Olympic Qualifier in Miyazaki, Japan, will leave you wide-eyed and thrilled.

Some background.

The Brazilian Olympic surf team is the most precious of all and the most difficult to get into. Two men and two women only, with Gabriel Medina, Filipe Toledo, Michael Rodrigues, Caio Ibelli, Jadson Andre, Willian Cardoso, Deivid Silva, Peterson Crisanto, Yago Dora, Jesse Mendes, Adriano de Souza, Mateus Hardy, Alex Ribeiro, Miguel Pupo and Ian Gouveia all chasing the two men’s spots.

Silvana Lima and Tati Weston-Webb, likely, will take the two women’s entries.

Now, Italo wants the Olympic gold medallion.

But, four days ago, while in America, Italo was robbed of his passport, which contained his important, difficult-to-get visas for the US. Rather than kick around in the US trying to get a fresh visa, he was told that since he’s got the contest he should fly to Japan on a fresh passport and go to the American consulate there.

Italo jumps a plane on September eight for an appointment the following day at the US consulate in Tokyo. His heat is on the tenth.

Hurricane Doz delays the flight. Italo is  stuck on the plane for eighteen hours.

Reschedules meet at US consulate for September 10, the day of the contest.

Meeting goes well, visa approved, means he can surf Freshwater Pro.

Jumps on a plane for the two-hour flight to Miyazaki and his round one heat at the Olympic Qualifier. No time to collect bags and boards.

The contest is delayed one hour so there’s a chance he’ll make his heat in time.

Arrives at contest in Miyazaki.

His twenty-minute heat has nine minutes left. Italo borrows Filipe Toledo’s board. Throws on a pair of denim shorts.

He has last priority. Comboed, obviously.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2QLZrqgT5S/

Goes to town and…wins heat. 

“Looking back, I had everything to go wrong with so much going on, but I always had hope until the end,” Italo wrote on IG. “This for me was a story of overcoming… I love surfing and I try my best to perform well. For me, getting here has been a victory. So if you have a problem in your life, DO NOT GIVE UP. BELIEVE! In the end it will be all right, just believe it is possible.”

You got a spot in your ruthless heart for the kid?

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2QMK4-g7aH/

 

 

The grumpy local reigns!

We’d been creeping closer for ages but this past August your friendly neighborhood BeachGrit finally blew right past longtime foils Stab and The Inertia to officially become the biggest little surf website in the world. Our social media presence is minimal, a dwarf in comparison, our social media spends are entirely non-existent. We can’t afford bots or other traffic juicing tools and don’t believe in them even if we could and yet here we are, all thanks to the greatest stable of surf journalists surf journalism has ever seen and, above all, you.

You and Negatron.

I’ll be real honest, it feels good to have it all built on a clunky analog* foundation. A website that folks have to punch into the “search” bar. A comment section like an old-school chat room. Yellow headlines that shout funny and a distinct lack of ugly pandering to advertisers, condescension to the reader or broadening the subject matter to include ocean kayaking/camping. It makes me believe that, even in this crossed up, noisy world, like-minded ne’er-do-wells can still find each other and that surfing’s like-minded ne’er-do-wells are more engaged than its consumers looking for the latest rugby shirt or its “everything is awesome” ocean kayaking/camping VAL.

I’m very biased but BeachGrit is how I want surfing to feel and I’m grinning ear to ear that, at least today, the blood feuds, less-than-completely-verifiable gossip, fun making and fun having are where people want to be too.

So thank you. Sincerely and honestly.

And you’re next World Surf League. May the grumpy local reign evermore!

*Analog as in obsolete technology not Burton’s one-time surf brand.

"The WSL is excited about the venue's potential in 2020 and beyond!"

More news has trickled in regards to this morning’s reported shuttering of Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California or rather gushed. Sources very close to Santa Monica’s levers of power let it be known that Kelly Slater Wave Co.’s Solana Beach office is not closing, Surf Ranch is staying open and, moreover, the whole operation is staffing right up.

A Surf Ranch bull market!

A Surf Ranch revival!

A World Surf League spokesman went on the record, a rare treat, to state unequivocally that:

“The Surf Ranch Lemoore facility continues to invest in new staff and experiences and the WSL is excited about the venue’s potential in 2020 and beyond.”

That right there is as solid as it gets but… something feels fishy. Something feels…off as the sources for the original story were also very close to Santa Monica’s levers of power.

So what is going on here?

I’ll wander down to those Kelly Slater Wave Co.’s Solana Beach offices soon and peek in the windows but until then lets speculate some more.

Is the Surf Ranch property in Lemoore, California truly viable? Once the novelty wears off can it be a money-making corporate retreat? Site of a summer music/surf festival? Other? It certainly doesn’t produce enough waves to be open to the general public but will Google, Facebook and Purdue Pharma pay top dollar, year over year, to host “employee days” under the cow stinky sun?

Maybe.

We are currently living through a VAL bull market, a VAL explosion, but it still makes more sense that co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff slowly transfers resources from the one-time test facility to a larger, more functional model almost exactly like the piece of property just acquired outside of Austin, Texas that once housed a Wavegarden.

But what do I know? Maybe not that much. Maybe more than I should.

More as the story develops.