Giveth/Taketh
Imagine being Damien Hardman. One moment there you are The Iceman bashing Kong, hoisting Bells bells, sipping on gin and juice. The next you have been utterly and completely nullified by a new crop of brash young things calling themselves “The Momentum Generation” all listening to Pennywise and doing whirligigs on their weird surfboards.
But such are seismic shifts and to be, accidentally, on the other side when one is happening is to be truly unlucky.
Hardman got earthquaked with Slater, Machado, Dorian, Knox, et. al. progressing surfing at a ludicrous pace and sent off to early-adjacent retirement.
Now, so to will Tyler Wright and the rest of the women on the current World Surf League Championship Tour, or at least according to David Lee Scales.
I asked him about Caitlin Simmers’ U.S. Open win over the weekend and what it meant. She surfs like Dane Reynolds,” he told me. Between her, Sierra Kerr, Erin Brooks etc. there is going to be a total bloodletting on tour. These girls are going to be like the Momentum Generation, sweeping in and taking everyone out. It’s over.”
I asked him if Stephanie Gilmore would survive.
“Yes,” he responded. She’ll be like Tom Curren.
It’s good to be queen.
Listen here.
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
This BG who gives a stuff about facts , piss off the surfline and stroke NCs ego .
Caity Simmers surfs like Luke Stedman.
Also ultimate surf power couple: Layne Beachley and Ken Bradshaw
I tell ya one thing, she’s not the hermaphrodite Simon Law
I don’t understand what you said, but it sounds like you’re a science-denying racist extremist
Pennywise was good ….
Weird to single out dooma hardman. Do you know who came second in the world the year slater won his first title?
Hardman
I remember the first mobile bells, in 92 or 93. The kids were supposed to dominate but in beach break surf at Johanna, the finalists were Hardman and BL.
It’s become de rigeur to hang shit on him for some reason but Damián Hardman was a radical surfer, ruthless competitor and two time world champion. The guys that were really lost in the wake were “power surfers” like Elkerton but even he was runner up in 93.
Noone knows less about pro surfing than these two clowns.
hundred percent hs
Haha just proves how shit the talent pool on pro circuit actually was in 80s and early 90s.
NC can write it up as much as he likes but one coke fuelled turn at pipe did not make that era great.
Actually I take the opposite view, that pro surfing in the late 80s was the strongest ever and ks won 11 titles because none of his contemporaries had any competitive fire until Irons, and even Irons spudded out when he first arrived.
From 1991 to about 2001, take slater out of the equation and the standard of pro surfing was pretty much shit.
That Carroll snap might seem passe now but at the time it blew minds, no one had done it, not in that part of the wave.
I snap does not maketh a generation , unlike KS and his crew they changed competitive surfing for ever.
haha , so you judge a whole generation on Tom’s snap…..yep pretty delusional not sure where you were in the 80’s/90’s…..were you born yet?
Gland with Nobby in the beginning !!
what in 74?
did you mean noddy?
Nope not the Hawaiian
Well I never said it did make the generation. For starters that was quite a while after TC’s prime. But I was around at the time and it did blow minds. It was like the Laird wave; no-one believed it.
Kelly changed surfing with his air game but it’s not like he was the first guy to blow minds with airs, Potter had been doing it 10 years earlier, and then there was the radical but ugly Christian Fletcher.
I make a big distinction between changing surfing forever and changing competitive surfing forever. Quite different things. For competitive surfing you can probably go back to early 80s with the stubbies events. Or even Simon Anderson on the thruster.
Kelly came up against a fairly average competitive scene for about the first 10 years of his career, until Irons arrived.
show’s how little you know about surfing!
Ahh the Troll takes the bait lol so funny.
yeah couldn’t help it , when I see a statement devoid of any reality, LOL!
OT: Jen, have you noticed how Caity sounds exactly like Cortuney Conlogue?
If you dont happen to care about proffesional surfers/ing then it really does not matter …
Let’s hope it’s Wade Carmichael, to make it as strange as possible.
Wade-o in one of those under the taint Rip Curl women’s spring suits…
Aged about as well as the 40somethings that still love them
Ronnie’s second mistake was pointing the baggie at the cops.
That and a healthy baggie of meth to buy of the tweekers on the beach!
Simmers is boiling at the moment, but will she get fried from the pressure, or poached by an opposition company/country ?
She might become scrambled, and it’ll all be over, easy…
Eggsactly!
It’s weird to me how no one talks about Carissa. Five world championships, triple crown winner, and a gold medalist.
Carissa makes Steph look like an old cat lady collecting cans in the park.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
We dis Tyler for being political, but according to Title 4, United States Code, Chapter 1 section 8(j) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.
So by placing the flag over her private parts, on an athletic uniform, I’m assuming she’s making a bold claim for Hawaiian independence.
If only Ronnie Garcia was available to comment
This is complete rubbish. The chic barely did crap reentrys at Huntington pier. GMAFB, that means absolutely nothing. To top it off, how all you people are going on about the “future’. Better be stock piling, and planning on eating!
Chas n Dave wouldn’t know shit from shoe polish, and they wonder why their feet stink…
Did you say reentry?
The turn heard round the world….
Cool you managed to squeeze in a 5 min chat about surfing in between the weekly high points from Mumsnet.
I do hope David isn’t suffering too much in the latter stages of his pregnancy. Poor soul. I bet his hormones are through the roof.
Tom Curren is the best surfer ever, Steph Gilmore can’t even make a turn.
She will soon be forgotten
Can’t surf lefts
Makes me a bit like Steph
Dude i can name half a dozen local surfers that are better than Curren , he might be the best surfer in the commercial advertising world but the best thats beyond a big call
Lol 😂
OK I bite …so which 6 surfers?
Lewy boy oats
Tully Wylie
Asher
Xavier Huxy
Cooper Downsy
You can think of the rest
hahahaha…….we have just been talking about how low the level in Vic is…and why no-one from Vicco is even a QS level surfer…..