Kolohe Andino makes largely forbidden
“throat slashing gesture” in victory over countryman John John
Florence: “It was like cutting the snake off the head!”
By Chas Smith
Ride or die.
I had a feeling about San Clemente’s Kolohe
Andino coming into these Tokyo Olympics and surfing’s
grand debut. Had a feeling that all those so many years of
competition, all that American pride, was going to bake into a
very-difficult-to-deny succotash and look where we are, look what
we have.
Andino into the quarterfinals where he will be surfing against
Kanoa Igarashi. The wild battle of personal brands becoming truly
personal.
In order to reach the quarters, Andino had to undo countryman
John John Florence. Longtom, recounting the thrilling
exchange here, left out was that Andino made a largely
forbidden “neck slash gesture” after stomping his first air.
Running his hand along his throat as if to decapitate, spilling
much blood, etc.
Performing the move garners a $25,000 penalty in the National
Basketball Association, is banned by the National Football
Association and not appreciated by Major League Baseball
purists.
Andino, riding the moment, did not care for the puritanical
though, and told USA Today, “It was like cutting the snake off the
head in the first 10 seconds. I was just overwhelmed with emotions
and that’s what I ended up doing.”
Countryman Florence did not see the throat slash nor did he take
it to heart, telling the outlet, “I just heard the score and I was
like, “Oh my gosh, what did he do?'”
Andino v. Igarashi in mere hours.
Who you got?
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Surfing goes to the Olympics, day two
analysis: “The muddy mess and incomprehensible scoring will not
provide succour to ELO’s fevered dream of an Olympic-led surfing
boom”
By Longtom
Not what the Duke had in mind when he envisioned
the Sport of Kings as an Olympic sport.
I could have sworn, after Day One, that today was going
to be a no-name bloodbath, and it did in the end up being
that way.
But not at first as Steph Gilmore, then Johanna Defay, were
bundled out of the Olympics in very shitty
three-to-four-foot-gurgled-out beachbreak by Bianca Buitendag and
Yolanda Hopkins respectively. Potential super-star Ella Williams
went early, Tati got knocked and from there it was close to a
complete shut-out of the off-tour underdogs.
The two-point plus spread that we identified yesterday as the
key metric held true for the most part. The Peruvian men provided
the sternest resistance of the roughies, with Miguel Tudela just
getting pipped by local Hiroto Ohhara (fellow Pipe stud, I think?)
and Lucca Mesinas grafting a slim win against Leo Fioravanti.
It was a sloppy, muddy mess of a lineup, I feel quite sure not
what the Duke had in mind when he envisioned the Sport of Kings as
an Olympic sport.
Nonetheless, a bit of a revelation for the men’s commentary
having the non-surfing Englishman in the booth with Barton. He
quickly indentified the key ingredients of surfing as sport:
character, match-ups, skill and reality.
Just such a refreshing relief after the drinking from a firehose
rainbows and unicorns positivity of Turpel and crew. Seems when you
take pro surfing out of the hands of the WSL and play it like a
true sport with an independent commentary it comes out OK.
Maybe lessons learned for the next billionaire who hates space
travel and wants an expensive toy to play with.
The muddy mess and incomprehensible scoring will not provide
succour to ELO’s fevered dream of an Olympic led surfing boom.
It’s already happened, for one.
For two, VALS don’t give a fuck about competition.
Even the architect of Olympic surfing ISA Prez Fernando Aguerre
is savvy enough to realise that, claiming in a media interview this
week that, “We (surfers) exist outside of competitions. You can’t
be a boxer or a fencer if you don’t box or do fencing against
somebody. But everyone can be a surfer without competing. This is a
sport you do on your own.”
And to drop a final unflushable turd into the Olympic Wavepool
dream, he then took an aggressive, egalitarian, pro-ocean stance:
“The ocean is free. It doesn’t belong to anyone. No one can buy it.
Nobody can sell it. Nobody can charge you. You can be Bill Gates’
son or the janitor’s son, black or white, gay or straight, male or
female, young or old, fat or skinny. Nobody cares. The ocean
doesn’t care.”
It does care a little bit. But who’s counting.
The rest of the mainstream press coverage involved the typical
pro surfer whining about how negative stereotypes were holding the
sport back. Which is a complete load of cock and bull.
Obama, Zuck, Thor and his bro that was married to Miley Cyrus,
that cunt from Google who keeps a superyacht moored in the
Mamanucas near Cloudbreak etc etc. The biggest outdated stereotype
about surfing is that outdated stereotypes still exist. The mass
market has had fifty years of exposure to pro surfing and knocked
it back everytime.
It just don’t appeal.
Despite crap surf, the match-ups today did appeal to the
hard-core. And no offence to the women, but there was no real heat
in the exchanges until Andino and JJF hit the water for the second
heat of round three men’s.
JJF on the maroon Dark Arts, which stands accused of having
unreliable handling and a low make rate on airs and completions.
Andino on a stock PU/PE Mayhem driver. Neither men making
concessions to injury with visible strapping.
Brother opened the heat in emphatic fashion with a whipped and
lofted slob reverse, full rotation. Seven and a half.
He waved his arms frantically to hear the score again. Not for
information but as as psychological ploy to rattle JJF.
And, John did look rattled. The completions failed to
materialise. The rail game looked solid but the final turns would
not stick, adding fuel to the flame that carbon construction has
too much of a rigid flex modulus, making it unforgiving for bumpy
surf.
Brother was pumped by the judges on a very handy back-up ride
that should have beem a mid-five. Judged not to have completed the
final air and given a 2.7. He did not crack.
Twelve to go, JJF failed to stick an air. Nine to go, he failed
again.
Four-and-a-half minutes to go, Brother nails a slick slash and air
combo for a 6.33. 14.33 plays 8.93 with three on the clock.
The tension causes an intense physical reaction in me. My
fingers are twitching and spiders are crawling all over the back of
my neck. I want Brother to win so bad. John launches a tail-high
air with a weird, fluffy landing.
It needs an 8.07. I think it’s a six. Will judges crack? They
highball it a 6.77.
Ninety seconds takes an eternity. Brother catches a wave, gives
JJF the dancefloor with twenty seconds remaining. He does not catch
a wave. JJF exits without a medal. He will be thirty-two at the
next Olympics, in his prime as a Teahupoo surfer, assuming no
injury.
Medina starts his heat the exact same way. With a clean landed
air for a mid seven. Jules responds with a two-turn combo. Slick,
non-threatening, house building.
Medina falls and falls and falls, then falls again. He’s miles
up the beach from Wilson, close to the next jetty.
Who has the highest completion rate in the air? Has to be
Medina.
Failure seems not to bother a hair on his head.
Wilson stomps a single air. Takes a narrow lead with twenty to
go.
It’s tight with a third of the heat down. Wilson 11.84, Medina
10.10.
Fifteen to go, tension once more rises.
Each man seems to revert back to previous, more primal stages of
their surfing existence. Wilson as a kid surfing onshore slop at
Coolum and Medina running thousands of hours in the closeouts of
Maresias. Each in their own little world now, deciphering the
confused patterns of mixed windswell in the Olympic Games.
Medina catches a wave. Snaps hard and runs a heavy roof-top
float in the barrage of the shoredump. It’s a high six. Team Wilson
will call it an egregious over-score.
The Private Idaho ends. With the lead Medina smothers Wilson,
living all over him with ten to go. Too early to play total
defence, I think. A risky, finely calibrated strategy that offers
the maximum potential for a Medina interference call as he pushes
the limit of heavy D.
Ninety seconds, “he’s living all over me” thought the Aussie
crowd, inhabiting the psyche of Julian Wilson’s last moments as a
professional competitive surfer.
Forty seconds. Wilson sells Medina on a block, the first wave he
has caught in ten minutes.
Twenty seconds, Wilson gets his wave, hits it, launches a clean
spin, greased landing.
God, he could have that, I thought. Ice veined judges lowballed
a 6.83.
Wilson looked relieved. His team on the beach, ropeable.
Ripped off?
The spread flatters Medina, but the result: correct.
Who can beat him at an air-wind beachie?
Two guys. Italo, still going and the other: the best guy in the
world in beachbreak surf, Filipe Toledo, did not make the cut.
For convicts, Our Sally and O-Dog remain in medal
contention.
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InStyle magazine boldly declares that the
world is on the cusp of a “Billabong renaissance” after surfing’s
grand Olympic debut!
By Chas Smith
We are back!
I woke up this morning in a happy haze. Last
night, sitting on an outdoor patio whilst the rain gently fell, I
watched Jagger Eaton take Olympic bronze in men’s street
skateboarding. Eaton is family and watching him rise to his moment,
on a world-sized stage, was electric and it was fun.
So fun, in fact, that I missed surfing’s grand Olympic debut. At
some point, during the skate preliminaries, a cell phone was handed
my way streaming the show. I watched for a moment, it looked like
surfing, then went back to the big screen and the nollie half-cab
backside smiths.
The piece describes how surf-saturated society was in the late
1990s with Blue Crush and The OC and Maui Fever etc. etc. but then
how it all faded but now, thanks to the Olympics, its all coming
back.
Boxy Vans tees and Roxy surf shorts and sun-streaks in hair and
things.
Have you adequately prepared for that?
Are you sure?
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Surfing goes to the Tokyo Olympics, day one
analysis: “Medina and Ferreira are both equally likely to transcend
the sport. Medina’s Villain and Italo’s Joker are archetypes that
can be understood by anyone”
By Longtom
"Could surfing in the Olympics produce a Shawn
White or a Torah Bright, and who could that be?"
So here we are. Surfing made it’s debut in the
Olympic games.
It probably meant a whole lot to a few people, no-one I know
though, or know that I know.
Did you catch the Opening Ceremony?
No, me neither, although apparently Owen Wright looked suitably
insouciant wandering out into the stadium. He would not have looked
as dashing as Team USA, whose logoed up Polos took the cake for
team attire.
For those who did not see, Kelly Slater did not find a way to
finagle his way into the Olympic debut, which means that box will
definitely not be ticked in his career.
It was left to the two injured stars Kolohe Andino and John John
Florence to fly the Stars and Stripes for the men. Neither was
eliminated on Day One despite JJF looking very shaky in his round
one heat in one-to-three-feet “challenging” conditions.
He did not look back to full strength, but then he didn’t look
the full quid in Aussie beachbreaks, either. Andino looked fresher,
bringing the full complement of repertoire to junky gurglers, which
looked very much like the day at D-bah when he lost the QuikPro
final to Italo Ferriera in the dying seconds.
What did we expect for Japan? Junky little waves. That’s what we
got for Day One, albeit with a slow improving trend late in the
day.
Surprisingly, there was a lot to like.
Minus the crowds on the beach, and the relentless Tourism
Propaganda on the broadcast there was a folksy, down-home feel that
at times felt more like a local boardriders contest than the
Olympic games. Few tents on the beach, few cats cheering on their
buddies. No massive corporate super-structures.
I couldn’t find any surfing pals who had the Olympic froth on
but finally got a text from a comrade in the production biz. He
found the lack of “corporate fluffing” at the end of heats
refreshing. No hats, no drinks, no sunglasses., just points, loose
lycra shirts and a moribund sense of liberation.
I very much concur.
Of course, that may have been the vision from the Duke, although
they almost smothered the broadcast by laying on the origin story
in nauseating fashion, but it ain’t the way Elo and the Woz see the
‘Lympics. With the failure of the Wavepool to capture Middle
America they’ve now bet the farm on the billions of Olympic viewers
to blast surfing into the mainstream.
According to Elo, the exposure and attention from Tokyo is going
to fund sponsorship for the QS warriors and bankroll the sport in a
way never seen before. That’s paraphrasing but close enough to a
word for word quote.
He’s a flim-flam man so of course so we file that under “well he
would say that wouldn’t he”.
Perhaps the Medinas and Moores and Gilmores might pad out the
endorsement book with some more non-endemic sponsorship but will
that filter down to the Billy Stairmands or Connor O’Learys? Could
surfing in the Olympics produce a Shawn White or a Torah Bright,
and who could that be?
Gilmore and Fitzgibbon are near the end of their careers, as is
Owen, and Julian has already announced retirement.
Carissa Moore could go nuclear.
Medina and Ferreira are both equally likely to transcend the
sport. Medina’s Villain and Italo’s Joker are archetypes that can
be understood by anyone. A young Slater obvs would have been the
perfect candidate. Kanoa has a fairytale finish potentially in
front of him and a potent mix of characteristics (First Japanese
Champion etc etc) that mainstream media would gobble up.
Casting around for a potential superstar amongst the no names
only New Zealand’s Ella Williams stood out.
She bubbled like a Rotorua geyser on the dark sands of
Shidashita beach pre heat but unfortunately due to the lack of
post-heat pressers we were denied her take on the day. The other
gal with a story and a potential for the big time was Israeli chick
Anat Lelior. Israeli gals who have done time in the IDF are known
for being extremely bad-assed and the Tel Aviv native showed some
very handy skills in the shitty beachbreak.
Sadly, knocked in the last heat of the day. At 21, probably a
few more Olympics in Lelior’s future and I think she will have the
lady stones for Teahupoo in ’24.
The spread between the Tour surfers and the no-names intrigued
me sufficiently to last the day and as a preliminary answer to the
question: Is there a roughy capable of taking an Olympic medal off
a CT surfer? Italo blasted a two-point plus spread back to the
field in heat one which included Tour surfer Leo Fioravanti.
Typical, hyperactive, high-rep performance from Italo. Lots of
waves on a semi-wedging warm water beachbreak with an air wind.
Thats as close to a sure thing in professional surfing as there
is.
Kanoa put a smaller sub-two point margin on Peruvian Miguel
Tudela in heat two, a guy I only knew as a Pipe Stud and had no
idea he could whip rotations in measly beachbreak.
Julian came last in his round three heat, looked like he has all
year to my eye. Surfed incredible but couldn’t put a heat together.
The other tour surfer, Kolohe Andino, was beaten by a point and
change by Lucas Mesinas. Another Peruvian stud who grew up in the
town that inspired Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.
Owen laid on a paper-thin winning margin on Moroccan surfer
Ramzi Boukhiam. It took Medina in the next heat to restore the
natural order, if we are to believe that the tour surfers are the
best of the best. It was a joy to watch him get passed by German
Leo Glatzer and then launch a furious volley of single manouevre
tail-high airs complete with death stares and claims to retake the
lead.
That two-plus point spread, I think, will be the definitive
metric for determining winners and medallists. Carissa Moore
maintained it, as did Fitzgibbons and Gilmore who sizzled against a
thirty-six-year-old Silvana Lima using a subtle but dominant front
foot to back foot shimmy to accentuate turns in improving surf.
Caz Marks put a five-point spread on her opponents.
The potential for a Blue Crush-style explosion has more
potential in the women’s draw, featuring a mix of established
stars, hardy campaigners drawn out of retirement and genuine
surprise packets like Williams and Lelior. Japanese surfers
progressed.
Wilson snuck through in his repecharge heat, JJF found a spark
missing from his round one heat to advance.
The commentary was fine, less annoying that it could have been
trying to educate Joe Sixpack on the difference between goofy and
natural.
Very “pro-ocean” which would seem to signal the death knell of
any idea that Olympic surfing will ever happen in a wave basin.
More of the same coming, except better, for Mon/Tues.
Blood feud: Surfing great Shaun Tomson
slams marquee Volcom surfer in wild harangue, “Noa Deane, he’s a
big mouth, I want to see that dude get a wildcard at ten-foot Pipe
against Gabriel Medina. He’ll be crying! His body will be
flayed!”
By Derek Rielly
"The guy’s got a big mouth and never stops whining
about the WSL. Let’s see that dude step up!"
The great Shaun Tomson, a man who redefined backside
tuberiding at Pipeline in 1975 and who won a world title at
twenty-two, has hit out at the Australian surfer Noa Deane for his
since redacted anti-WSL stance.
In a wild harangue on podcast The Boardroom, which is oiled by
Surfer’s former online editor Scott Bass, Tomson, now sixty-six, is
led into a discussion about the WSL, wildcards, and so on.
Tomson is a a clean-skin with a fiery anti-drugs stance and was
once described by Kelly Slater as the “ultimate pro”.
Fifty-three minute in he fumes.
“I’d love to see these wildcards, you know, the big mouths like
Noa Deane, big mouth, I want to see that dude, give him a wildcard
at ten-foot Pipe. I want to see Noa Deane with his big mouth come
up against Italo Ferreira and let’s see what happens.”
A theatrical pause.
“Let me tell you, the dude will be savaged! He will be
cryyyyying… with his body… he will be flayed.
The guy’s got a big mouth and never stops whining about the WSL.
Let’s see that dude step up! People just let these dudes chirp.
Step up and put up or shut up!”
It’s a pretty good effort to get a little emotion out of Shaun,
he ain’t one for stepping out of his usual boundary lines of
positivity, surfing-for-everyone etc.
Sadly for Shaun, ol Noa set his anti-WSL trip aside two days
after the Surfer Poll awards in 2014 when he described his “fuck
the WSL” moment as “incredibly stupid… I’m meant to be a role
model in surfing and my actions on the night were not appropriate
and that was not the time or place to voice that opinion.”
Wildcards at Pipe?
Three years ago, he took down world champ John John Florence at
the Volcom Pipe Pro… at ten-foot Pipeline.