Russian surfers tell sport’s governing body to go to hell in strongly worded email following recent ban on competing, “Sport unites, does not discriminate, and cannot act as a tool of manipulation!”

“No athletes and officials from Russia will be invited to participate or attend ISA events until further notice."

What is history but one bloody thing after another?

It’s 2022 and we are still settling things by blowing each other to rags with the guns and bombs that serve the mega rich?

I sure wish we had a Swedish female special needs teenager to warn us that for the good of mankind, among other things, this is no way to behave.

And speaking of behaving, even though surfing has nothing to do with going to war against your brother man (unless you wanna go surf Snapper or maybe take longboard contests away from Joel Tudor), our beloved International Surfing association is locked in a shit fight with the Russian Surfing Federation.

Who’d a thunk it?

Firing the first salvo, the ISA is standing with Ukraine,

“No athletes and officials from Russia will be invited to participate or attend ISA events until further notice… will not consider staging any ISA events in Russia for the foreseeable future…The global surfing community is shocked and appalled by the awful act of aggression by Russia and Belarus’ role to facilitate their invasion of Ukraine…We are unequivocal in our views on this crisis and we stand in full solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. This is a human tragedy that requires us all to take a strong stance and send a message that such violence will not be tolerated nor forgotten. The ISA’s decisions serve to ensure the safety of the public, athletes and officials, and protect the integrity of our competitions…We remain in contact with the Ukrainian Surfing Federation to offer support to the Ukrainian surf community and we hope peace is restored as quickly as possible”.

The RSF responded with its own defensive maneuver,

“Today, the Russian Surfing Federation held a meeting to discuss the position on the sanctions that all Russian athletes fell under due to the current political situation in the world. Following the Russian Olympic Committee and in support of our talented athletes, we want to note that sport cannot be politicized; sport unites, does not discriminate, and cannot act as a tool of manipulation; the exclusion of Russian athletes from international competitions is illegal and contrary to Olympic principles. For our part, we will immediately send our application to the International Surfing Federation and the European Surfing Federation in order to protect the rights of our athletes to participate in international competitions and take all possible measures to stop discrimination”.

And there you have it, the power of strongly worded emails.

Jesus.

Why don’t we just send in the businessmen that caused all this and have them hash it out?

Personally, I like that idea. Like the Russian-black-market-Levi’s-501-Jeans seller billionaire who just offered a million bucks to anyone that would go and arrest Putin.

Or maybe just take Putin to the Maldives and teach him how to surf?

But for God’s sake, please, keep him away from the Goldie. I can already sea Rabbit standing if front of the Russian tanks at the Kirra gazebo.

And we need Rabbit alot more than that Russian bloke.