U.S. Olympic Committee reverses decades-long policy of banning protests at the games allowing Kolohe Andino to take knee and raise fist, John Florence to wear “Trans Lives Matter” hat during anthem!

Caroline Marks and Carissa Moore rallying for the historically oppressed!

In a move likely to send shockwaves through international sport, the U.S. Olympic Committee quietly reversed a decades-long policy disallowing protest during the playing of the National Anthem at this summer’s Japan Games and will allow its athletes to rally as they see fit.

A nine-page “guidance” was released detailing the changes and what gold medal winners will now be able to do on the podium including taking a knee, raising a fist or wearing a hat with phrases such as “Trans Lives Matter,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Equality,” or “Justice.”

U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirchland wrote, “This guidance defines latitude for athletes to express their personal perspectives on racial and social justice in a respectful way, and without fear of sanction from the USOPC.”

It also warned athletes not to use any hate language or phrases deemed “impermissible” by the Anti-Defamation League.

All very fine and good, also just in time for surfing’s first-ever appearance in the Olympic Games.

As you know, the U.S. Olympic Surf Team consists of Kolohe Andino and John John Florence, for the men, Caroline Marks and Carissa Moore, for the women.

Which will do what, do you think?

Kolohe Andino on knee, fist in air?

John John Florence sporting a “Trans Lives Matter” hat?

Hmmmm.

The more I ponder, the more unlikely it seems.

In fact, it’s difficult to imagine a more un-protesty group anywhere on earth.

Anywhere historically even.

Kolohe Andino, John John Florence, Caroline Marks, Carissa Moore.

Wow.


10 Goodwin Terrace, Burleigh Heads.

Iconic Australian beach shack bought for $7 million in 2020 sells for $11 million less than one year later!

A bullish market in once dirty-as-anything Burleigh Heads… 

A couple of months back, BeachGrit reported the sale of a one-hundred-year-old wooden shack on six-thousand square feet at 10 Goodwin Terrace, Burleigh Heads, for seven million bucks, almost two-and-a-half mill more than it sold for in 2016.

The couple who bought the joint, Brian and Lauren McMaster, had been trying to buy it for three years. After the last refusal by the owner to sell, the pair bought a six-mill penthouse a little further down the street.

Burleigh Heads in 1920, when eleven mill would’ve bought you the headland and the land behind it all the way to Perth on the far western coast.

The agent that sold ‘em the penthouse then  convinced the owner of 10 Goodwin to sell ‘em the house, too, for seven mill.

A nice little pair of boltholes, although the plan for the historic house was to flatten the thing to make way for a “standout family home.”

Now, the place is believed to be under contract to the developer, Spyre group, for eleven mill or twenty gees for every hundred square feet. 

A four-mill profit in eleven months.

It ain’t bad.

The land is zoned medium density and has a three-storey, fifty-feet feet height limit, which means the developer ain’t gonna toss a tower on the land, although developers have been known to work many behind-the-scenes miracles.

Once one of the grittier parts of the Gold Coast, third in shittiness behind Coolangatta and perennial winner Palm Beach, Burkeigh Heads has been transformed into a paradise for investors, including the Chinese man who bought the Old Burleigh Theatre Arcade, the former home of Surfing Life magazine, for eighteen-mill.


In explosive first, Kanoa Igarashi compared to Duke Kahanamoku: “The young Japanese surfer exudes the same statesmanlike qualities as the Hawaiian who first believed surfing could be an Olympic sport!”

Reincarnation.

Exciting times to be a surfer. The most exciting in history, perhaps, or at least since the great Duke Kahanamoku strode the earth nearly a decade ago. More people enjoying the pastime of kings since ever before. An Olympic birth just over the horizon. Our own Duke Kahanamoku reborn as an extremely handsome Japanese by way of Huntington Beach statesman named Kanoa Igarashi.

The young-ish surfer was recently profiled on Australia’s ABC News and the comparison between Kahanamoku and Igarashi was obviously striking.

Igarashi will be the same age as Duke Kahanamoku was at his first Olympics, but it’s not the only thing they share.

The young Japanese surfer exudes the same statesmanlike qualities as the Hawaiian who first believed surfing could be an Olympic sport.

“You know, this is a huge moment, I’m sure not just for me but I can speak on behalf of all the other surfers we’re going to feel pressure that we’ve never felt before,” he said.

“You have Brazilians, you have Australians, you have Americans all feeling pressure from their country and we are all really proud to represent our flag.

“But there’s something about it being in Japan and I feel like in a way I am representing our country to the world of surfing, and also representing surfing to the Olympics.

“So, in a way, I feel I have a lot on my hands,” he says, “but this is what I feel like I was born to do.”

Very cool. Igarashi also talks about his new megaphone and butterflies in his blood.

Read the rest here.


Renee Gracie, former BFF of EJC.

Blood Feud: “Australia’s squirt queen” Renee Gracie roasts former world #25 surfer Ellie-Jean Coffey for a lack of explicit content on XXX-website and says, “She looks nothing like she does in her photos… I don’t understand how she continues to get away with it.”

“She doesn’t give a damn… She doesn’t care. She just wants people to spend money."

Echoing the claims of adult entertainment fans who complained of price gouging and a lack of explicit content on world number 25 surfer Ellie-Jean Coffey’s XXX channel shortly after it was launched, former pal Renee Gracie has accused EJ of bring the industry into “disrepute”. 

Speaking to Australia’s The Daily Telegraph, Gracie, whose full-service menu has been banned from Instagram and Twitter, said EJ promised XXX but delivered PG.

“She doesn’t give a damn… She doesn’t care. She just wants people to spend money… I said to her ‘there’s no point collaborating together if we’re not putting similar content up online’… It’s hard enough to get fans to respect you and trust you in this industry. It’s not just her reputation, it’s all the women in the industry she is affecting without knowing it.”

Gracie told The Daily Telegraph that because, unlike her, EJ don’t sex on camera, fans have become terribly upset. 

“I show and do everything. She does not. And when we met, she looks nothing like she does in her photos. I don’t understand how she continues to get away with it. And nothing has been done about it.”

In the story, Gracie also revealed they pair fell out after she refused to collaborate on a video shoot with EJ. 

Four months ago, if you remember, Gracie was photographed frolicking with EJ at a Gold Coast nightclub.

Gracie, who is a retired V8 Supercars driver (forty-eight starts, no wins) and who says she’s made almost two-mill from her Only Fans site, “was spotted groping her blonde companion’s chest, while Ellie-Jean closed her eyes in apparent ecstasy. Ellie-Jean, who is openly bisexual, was also seen bending over a table while Renee danced close to her bottom.”

EJ, a former world twenty-five on the WSL’s qualifying series for women, caused much tabloid sorrow in 2019 when she was the subject of a “lewd ambush” by the author of the best-selling biography of prime minister Bob Hawke. 

A terrible episode.


Art: Comrade KVF
Art: Comrade KVF

Listen: Unsinkable Project Ibelli buoys weary Surf Journalist overcome by doubt, despair; Gives him the power to denounce iconic Gerry Lopez!

Faith, restored!

I will be very honest. Heck, I always am, with you. When Project Ibelli, launched just over a week ago, hit nearly half of its funding goal after only three days, I thought, “We’ve got this. We’ve actually got this.”

The audacious plan, if you recall, was to crowdfund a sticker, then a message, on the nose Comrade Caio Ibelli’s surfboard for the Newcastle Cup event in order to send a message to surfing’s vested interests. Its billionaire co-Waterpeople of the Year and private equity firms.

This is The People™’s game.

It belongs to us.

Except then, we got close to the beginning of that Newcastle Cup and still nearly half funded and then the hooter sounded and still only half funded.

An overwhelming depressing washed over me.

We had failed.

I had failed.

And carrying this profound sense of failure, I shuffled into Album Surfboard’s podcast studio.

David Lee Scales looked at me like I was dumb.

“What is your problem?” he asked.

“We lost.” I answered.

And then he went on a tear, preaching and prancing about how this is not just a one-off, how we will get Caio his money whether it be by Day 2 of the Newcastle Cup or Day 4 of the Margaret River Cup. That his is a movement and only the beginning of that movement.

Etc.

How could I have had such little faith.

So buoyed was I that I was able to denounce Gerry Lopez at the end of the episode.

Listen here.