A damning tirade!
The WSL is trying to kill longboarding again and we don’t like it.
In 2019, The Longboard World Tour had new life breathed into it in the form of the creation of a multi-stop tour that went to New York City and a corn field in Spain to be finished off in a hurricane in Taiwan. Devon Howard was also appointed as commissioner in a clear move by WSL to push longboarding into its home of traditional style.
Now it doesn’t matter what Devon Howard does, because WSL is set on deciding world champions in a single event like they do in the CT Finals, except without the 10 preceding events to make it actually interesting.
So now, current World Champion Joel Tudor, who returned to the tour to win the whole thing in 2021 despite being approximately double the age of his rivals, is back to his favourite hobby of calling out the WSL.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
This time it’s taken the form of this being a step backwards in the gains that women have made in competitive surfing.
And he’s got a point.
Chris Cote said on air during women’s Pipe something along the lines of, “the same waves, the same judging criteria, the same number of events, everything the same” except for the 50% opportunity that women actually get to compete on the Championship Tour.
It seems to be this readily forgotten detail that the women’s CT has only half the number of surfers of the men.
Over on the longboard tour however, the women’s tour is the same size. In fact, the women’s division is broadly considered the premier division of the tour. And the WSL are prepared to kill it off, giving women even less opportunity to compete.
All as they masquerade as a world leader of gender equality in sport.
So, while Joel Tudor has long been a divisive figure across longboarding, he has an unrivalled ability to call people to action.
If he’s saying fuck the WSL, then loggers across the globe are likely going to fuck it.
He rallied for two decades to make the WSL establish a traditional criteria for the longboard World Tour and in the end they did.
So, while Tudor seems an unlikely ally in the struggle for gender equality in sport, when feminism meets longboarding I am glad he is on our side.
Florida astronaut look!
Lucy,
Among other negative things, you are now a bootlicker as well.
Wavepool Log Comps killed that Tour stone dead.
Nothing more boring, soulless and pointless has ever been broadcast live and sold as “sport”.
The Men’s CT should be cut 50%. And the women by another 50%.
If you had to put the same amount of women on tour it would make women’s aurfing look really bad; unfortunately women’s surfing is not yet at the same level as the men’s. So let’s not go there.
Longboarding is easier and I’m not even going to complete where I’m going with this. You know where I’m going with this. Longboarding is many things, but a progression it certainly isn’t. It’s a past time caught in the past, like vintage cars.
Longboarders are generally people who don’t want to struggle to get better. Shortboards are hard to master and that’s how it should be, because the pay off is immense.
Now I’m tired.
Oh but the girls sure look pretty prancing to the nose in their bikinis, and thats the only reason anyone is the slight bit interested. Joel is good, but so are any of the thousands of 25 year olds cruising on their single fins from SanO to Byron to Queens.
The girls have stopped wearing bikinis. It’s over.
Longboarding… me being halfway to a hundo, something I avoid as much as possible, its something my older friends do weeks before they expire. It’s depressing… 🙁
That logic by Joel is cooked. More likes for lifestyle pics of women logging vs women competing on the WSL somehow equates to more people wanting to watch competitive logging….
Gotta wonder how many obscure non related pics get more likes than Tyler’s layback though. That’s a crusade I’d get behind!
I’ve never been to Stockholm. Is it nice?
Nicer than Gothenberg and Malmo.
Fortunately for Malmo it’s only a short train ride to Copenhagen which is a much nicer city.
but all the good tv crime dramas are from Malmö!
Not a surprise.
My office is directly across the street from the central station and there was at least one bombing/shooting that I know of.
Bap Burgers in Östermalm is where I had the best hamburger I have ever had in my life.
A lot of big words and metaphors in this articles intro. I don’t think I understand.
Metaphors is a big word.
You tell’em Lucy.
*Please, in Turpel’s voice*
‘And she’s gunna jam that log in hole! It comes out cleanly! Wow! How’d you see that one ‘89 World Champ……(*crickets*). Ok, well let’s cross to ‘88 World Champ…..(*crickets*). Such an informative historic day here, what’s your take on that one Uncle Lenny……(*crickets*).
*Queue ad for something made in China using Hawaiian cultural appropriation, the ukulele, double rainbows and two dudes in a Jeep throwing energetic double shakas*
What is the gender issue, when the longboard girls get the same as the longboard guys?
This makes no sense – the longboard girls get the same money as the longboard guys, what’s the gender issue?
Loggers are people who have fun on their time off with their friends.
Not sure how that became a tour.
Equality.
Or Equity.
Or whatever buzzwords people will need in the future to demand that people “PAY ATTENTION TO ME!”
Be careful WSL loggers, they may turn your tour into one event and name a champion that didn’t complete a ride.
So will Dirk cave in to da pressure?
Isn’t Elo a logger?
Wait, oh ya, he rides a Sup.
And Dirk don’t ride at all.
Wait, what’s my point here?
Oh ya, the Wsl is a joke.
If there is so much money and sponsorship available for womens longboarding start your own tour. Logging is visually appealing to the beginner / insta girls, but their audience doesn’t care about comps or world titles.
I would say 1% or less of Instagram viewers could name the top 3 womens longboarders.
Not everything is equal.
There are top women long-boarders?
You forgot your “souls surfer” shtick .
If you want to drive a feminist bonkers ask them who was the first woman to climb mount everest. Or first woman to surf pipeline. They’ll go apshit because they have to use google.
Then if you really want to be a bastard ask them who was the first woman on the moon.
Third wave feminists just need to get laid.
Sorry (not sorry) Lucy
Longboarding is really just a recreational hobby for beginners, skinny bikini model type girls, fat and/or lazy blokes, and old folks of any size or sex (unless being done in heavy water which these comps never are), and should have no money attached at all (unless ya at Teahupo’o etc which they never are).
All the best with your (and Turdo’s) hobby but please don’t expect any great outpourings of sympathy or support to get paid for playing in the little waves on tanker sized boards.
Your whole recreational activity is akin to tiddlywinks.
P.S.
I take that tiddlywinks comment back, ‘winkers’ deserve far more…
1989 was a great year for you wasn’t it.
Bloody oath
Possibly the year I surfed cranking ‘estuary’ (rare to get it on so wasn’t gonna not surf it) during a longboard comp and had a few competitors whinging that they had legal right of way but they were wasting waves like Lahey at pipe, so had to laugh and ignore them.
Great fun…
After the women’s shit show at Pipe where a wildcard looked like the only one who actually wanted to be in the water, maybe it’s about time we start talking about why surfing women of all board lengths deserve less (especially Lakey Peterson, who earned $25k for bobbing around looking scared for 35 minutes)
“The WSL is trying to kill longboarding again and we don’t like it.”
Hopefully it succeeds this time!
most of their eggs remain in the “kill competitive surfing as a whole” basket tho, it would appear