Slater, eating the foamy wash of an adult learner at Desert Point.

Concern for Kelly Slater as footage emerges of champ surfing Indonesian reefs while suffering injury so grave he was forced to pull out of crucial events in El Salvador and Brazil!

And gets being humiliated by VAL at Desert Point!

There was little surprise when Kelly Slater pulled out of contests in El Salvador and Brazil, events of little value to a man whose residual skill shines in epic reef barrels, Pipe, Teahupoo.

Slater, who turns fifty-one in February, has made an art of avoiding the Brazil leg of the tour, citing back pain, foot pain, personal reasons, whatever it takes to avoid the long flight, the “passionate” fans and waves that rarely thrill, usually in collusion with the WSL.

As Chas Smith wrote a few days back,

“The odd thing, I suppose, is how the World Surf League supports his animosity. It would be thought that Brazil is very important to the WSL’s future of CEO Erik Logan’s promised 300% – 650% year-over-year growth and that he would ensure the country felt respected but apparently the League offices do not care. Is it because the WSL imagines that Brazil should feel lucky to have an event at all? A classic, though very out of fashion, sort of paternalism? A white man’s burden?”

Therefore, instead of Central and South America, the eleven-time champ detoured to Bali for fitness training and sessions at Uluwatu and even a side trip to Desert Point on Lombok for the pleasure of being humiliated by a VAL, eating the learner’s foamy wash as the villain rode to glory.

Obviously, fans fear further injury to brittle bones etc.

And Ulus!

 

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In repudiation of World Surf League, leading U.S. cable news network disappears the Surf Ranch Pro from annals of history!

Stalinist.

I was treated to a lovely news segment, this morning, from Atlanta, Georgia’s CNN. The 24-hour news network has fallen on harder times, viewership numbers plunging as competitor Fox News maintains a steely grip on ratings, but it was once groundbreaking, even synonymous with the very concept of “news.”

A recorder of history as it is occurring in the very moment. The events which will someday be codified into books and taught to our children’s children’s children’s children.

As it happens, our World Surf League should be entirely worried about its place in the aforementioned history for the lovely news segment I was treated to featured wave pools and was filed under the title “Are artificial surf parks ready for competition?”

It began with the footnote that the first wave pool in history was built in 1870 by the “mad king” Ludwig II of Bavaria. He, allegedly, dug a pit under his beautiful castle, filled it with water and zapped it with electricity. The narrator then discusses artificial wave pools growing in popularity through the 1980s, the sort that lap against children floating on tubes at Disneyworld etc., to our modern high-performance surf iteration.

Off we then whisk to Gipuzkoa, Spain, the location of Wavegarden’s private R + D facility to meet founder and CEO Josema Odriozola. He chats about the various technologies they are employing, making better air sections for Brazilian surfers (since they are the best at that sort of thing), better barrels, better faces for turns. The well-spoken Aritz Aranburu is introduced and says, “I really think the waves are good enough to hold events. I think it is going to be interesting to do events in places with no ocean.”

The storyline returns to the narrator, who says, “While wave pools will never replace the ocean, there is the potential for a new kind of contest.” And takes us to the Switzerland which “has hosted the first competition.” According to Odriozola it was “a big success” with the surfers knowing that the waves would be there for them, no ocean going flat, no waiting etc. Aranburu declares the only thing left is to make the waves bigger.

And scene.

Not only no mention of Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch there in Lemoore, California, but not mention of the Surf Ranch Pro which, not once but twice, hosted World Surf League Championship Tour competitions.

Those who were forced to watch the Surf Ranch Pro in real time likely felt that history would not treat it kindly but for it to be disappeared from the annals in a Stalinist purge?

A pure and vicious repudiation of the World Surf League.

Ouch.

Watch here. 

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WSL’s head of tour and competition leads call to “abort” Supreme Court and iconic tour commentator begs for cancellation of July 4 celebrations as USA is “plunged into a medieval darkness” following overturning of landmark Roe v Wade decision!

“‘Jane Roe’ later revealed she'd been haunted by recurring nightmares of “little babies lying around with daggers in their hearts".

There are two sorts of people in this world.

The first are those who’ve lived a little and thereby understand the imperfection of humanity.

We lie, we cheat, we steal, we’re willing actors in a number of terrible and beastly scenes, although this doesn’t necessarily make us bad.

Generally, pro-choice.

In the other corner you have those who, whether by privilege or good luck were protected from life’s cruelties, insist man lives by an immaculate moral code, and any transgression must be punished harshly.

Pro-life.

Y’might’ve heard that the US Supreme Court just overturned the almost-fifty-year old Roe v Wade decision that ruled that the US Constitution protected a woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion, overriding any state law on the matter.

Now that Roe v Wade is history it’s the decision of each state to make abortion legal or illegal, plunging half of the country, the red states, into a medieval darkness where kids have to cross state lines or visit shady illegal surgeries for abortions.

As you might imagine, the conservative south is hot for illegal, liberal coastal states, California, New York, pro-abortion.

However you slice it, pun intended, abortion is an ugly, ugly thing.

When you’re sitting in that sterile little beige room, your girl on the cot, ultra-sound wand over her still flat stomach and you see that living creature with a beating heart on the screen, and you play god by deciding it should die, well, it’s gonna mark you for life.

But better than an unwanted child, I think, a kid discarded by parents, too young or too ruined or too poor to give ‘em a life worth living.

And, in a country like the US that has the highest rate of children living in single-parent households in the world, a joint that has valorised the baby-daddy thing, forcing a woman to raise a kid to term is a catastrophe.

Earlier today, the rather wonderful Jessi Miley-Dyer, the WSL’s SVP of Tours and Head of Competition, made her thoughts on the matter clear by posting a provocative image along with instructions on how to get an abortion if you live in a pro-life state.

f

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A post shared by Jessi Miley-Dyer (@jessmileydyer)

The WSL’s colour commentator, Chris Cote, weighed in on Twitter, suggesting Independence Day celebrations be cancelled in protest.

On an interesting side note, Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of the original ruling, hero to millions etc, did a switcharoo twenty years later, turning vehemently pro-life, explaining that she’d been haunted by recurring nightmares of “little babies lying around with daggers in their hearts”.

“(They) never told me that what I was signing would allow women to come up to me 15, 20 years later and say, ‘Thank you for allowing me to have my five or six abortions. Without you, it wouldn’t have been possible.’ (They) never mentioned women using abortions as a form of birth control. We talked about truly desperate and needy women, not women already wearing maternity clothes.”

Thought provoking, yeah?

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Call for return of Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch following shocking run of events in bad waves as world champ Gabriel Medina is bundled out of Brazil contest by unfancied Australian!

It’s the equivalent of the NBA playing out the lacklustre end of the season but with a half-inflated ball.

The swell today was appropriately symbolic of my recent mood.

Fading, uncertain, fractured.

There were moments that teased clear air, but at other times there was just exasperation.

You might think, given the fact I have six weeks off every year at this time, that I would adore the summer.

You would be wrong.

Inevitably, at this time of year, I find myself mired in mild depression.

Too much choice, I think. Too many opportunities and no clear path to follow.

A winter spent dreaming of light and plans, a spring of burgeoning hope, and then a summer of stasis.

The nights are fair drawing in.

So too is the noose that chokes out all but the top five.

It’s becoming clearer by the day, but there are some niggles.

Toledo is assured. Robinson too, I think.

Colapinto, despite his early exit today, is more than likely.

I’d be shocked if Italo doesn’t manufacture a place.

Kanoa’s loss today somehow makes his chances swing wildly from certain to precarious.

Who won’t be there is just as important. Almost definitely no John or Gabby, more’s the tragedy.

The problem with this growing certainty is the shadow it casts over J-Bay and Teahupo’o. Both exciting waves, of course. Two of the best, actually.

But what of consequence? What’s left to play for?

There’s a certain malaise that can affect games played in the NBA’s regular season, particularly in the latter part of the schedule. Because of the playoff structure and the excitement of these games, players can lose a sense of purpose or motivation for the regular games.

At some point they know for sure if they’re heading to the playoffs or Cancun, and all remaining games are just treading water. Everyone can sense it, fans especially.

There’s a danger of that happening in the latter part of the WSL season under the current structure. Perhaps it already is.

If the waves show up I’m sure we’ll be entertained by good surfing even if not good competition, but if there’s a bad run like we’ve had recently it’s the equivalent of the NBA playing out the lacklustre end of the season but with a half-inflated ball.

Even a half-pumped-up Gabriel Medina would have escaped elimination at the hands of Callum Robson today.

With all due respect to Robson, who put together two solid scores and continues to show the sort of workmanlike approach with flashes of something other that must have Australian fans titillated, Medina should have left him bloodied and spent.

Medina’s first wave was a 7.5. I’d like to see some DEEP STATS on the number of times Medina has lost a heat after taking the lead with a keeper score on his first wave. If the number was zero I wouldn’t be shocked.

As it was, in the ten waves that followed he couldn’t muster anything above a 2.87 and couldn’t land airs he never even looked like making when he launched. It was perplexing to say the least.

Seeing him on the injury treatment table post-heat at least made it feel less like the world had spun off its axis.

If we’re honest, we’ve all been too bold about what Gabriel Medina might do in the latter part of the season. He’s just a man, after all. A man who missed the first five events entirely. A man who has endured various traumas in his personal relationships and openly admitted suffering from mental health issues.

Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes in his home country. Who knows what lingering ghosts are suddenly more present in Brazil?

Faring much better in the earlier heats today were wildcards Miguel Tudela and Mateus Herdy, who dispatched top seeds Colapinto and Igarashi, respectively.

Neither Griffin nor Kanoa surfed poorly, which makes these upsets seem more valid. Herdy, in particular, has an aerial repertoire that could snuff anyone’s flame in short order, including that of Jackie Robinson, whom he’ll face in the next round.

Also heading to the next round is Caio Ibelli, who managed to find not only a rare barrel but one so long and impossible that the judges had no choice but to give him a ten on a day when no other score came close. Full marks were awarded for the drama of emerging when he’d looked lost, and you might struggle to find someone who’d deny him the score, even me.

I was denied a hefty payday today, first by Joao Chianca, and then by the judges who robbed Caroline Marks of a rightful quarter final victory over Carissa Moore.

Is Chianca the unluckiest surfer we’ve seen?

He lost to Ethan Ewing by just 0.1 points in a see-saw heat. It was groundhog day for Chianca. Just as earlier in the season, he was part of an entertaining heat, surfed to solid scores, impressed everyone, and still lost.

Ewing’s passage to the round of 16 looks even better with Griffin and Kanoa out.

Half of the surfers remaining are Brazilian, marginally increasing their dominance from the start of the event.

There looks to be a layday tomorrow but solid swell after that, even if slightly suspect wind.

Waves cure all malaise. That we know for sure.

Honest question: would you have preferred Slater’s pool in place of any of the past three events?

I know my answer. I’d be interested to hear yours.

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Ultra-sustainable World Surf League draws fire after using thousands of plastic balls to mimic novelty wave for “ethically misguided” comedic stunt gone wrong!

"A troublesome pattern of behavior..."

If our World Surf League has positioned itself as champion of one thing, outside equality, it is the cause of our precious environment. At certain stops, professional surfers who have flown halfway around the globe are encouraged to plant bushes. At other stops, broadcast time is spent advocating for ecological awareness. The League is attempting to save a fragile wetland in Australia by replacing it with a Kelly Slater wave pool, partnering with cheaply constructed Chinese SUVs in order to better utilize landfills, doing “the work,” as they say.

Well, no organization can be perfect and the WSL is currently drawing fire for utilizing a pit used with thousands of plastic balls in order to mimic a novelty wave. Critics are calling the comedic stunt “ethically misguided” and “morally reprehensible.”

Plastic, as you know, is a leading cause of ocean pollution and takes roughly 450 years to break down when sloshing around in the great blue.

Not funny.

Santa Monica is yet to respond to those demanding account but let us hope the plastic balls will be reused in an ultra-sustainable way. Maybe as spare tires for Great Wall Motors fleet?

Smart.

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