So long, 2022.
As above, so below.
Spin it how you will, Mr Logan, but that was not an end
befitting all that has gone before.
Wave quality for Finals Day at Trestles was average.
Worse, it was soft.
The result? Two soft world champions.
Stephanie Gilmore just made the cut at Margaret River. She
didn’t even surf Pipe. She barely surfed Teahupo’o.
Convince me she deserves this world title. Convince me this is
progress.
Carissa Moore had a lead of more than 11,000 points. A full
event win, plus extra.
Moore should have another title this morning, and she’s within
her rights to feel damn sore that she doesn’t. All that work, all
that effort over a season, wasted. The result is not representative
of what we have witnessed, a fact pointed out by Johanne Defay in
reference to her own flaccid ending.
Gilmore seemed confused in the aftermath. She didn’t like the
format, she said. Now she thinks it’s the greatest thing ever. At
least she had the good grace to recognise that Carissa was the
superior surfer over the season. In my mind she’s far better over a
lifetime.
Except that’s not what history will say.
As for the men, Toledo’s maiden title was a predictable outcome
you’d have been foolish to bet against. Luckily I didn’t in the
end.
Do you accept the brittle Brazilian as your champion? His skills
are not in doubt, of course. In certain conditions he’s
unparalleled. His technical mastery of a surfboard is second to
none.
His commitment is not so certain.
Call me old-fashioned, but I feel that our world champion should
be a surfer we believe has the capacity to win at any stop on Tour.
Filipe Toledo is not that surfer, and yet here we are.
I’ve no wish to belabour this point. Toledo’s history and
sub-par performances at some of the world’s most iconic waves are
well documented by now, to the point that it’s become trite to
point it out. If he hasn’t progressed, that’s on him.
Maybe there’s still time.
I don’t grudge him his title. I’ve no doubt he’s worked for it.
But I just can’t bring myself to fully endorse it. At least, I
suppose, he was the points leader, therefore if Trestles had been
the final stop under the normal format he would still likely have
won.
But consider this – if the waves had been good all year, where
would he be? His best finishes were: Portugal (middling to poor),
Bells (decent to good), G-Land (junk), El Salvador (junk), Rio
(junk).
Moving on.
The WSL pulled out all the production stops for Finals Day. The
whole team were there, each assigned roles that I’d assume were
meant to play to their strengths. But the overall quality was
reminiscent of a travelling fair.
Much ado was made of the colours of the jerseys. Granted, they
were quite lovely (if entirely unnecessary), and I’m sure the
result of many, many enthusiastic meetings. Unfortunately, it was
all undermined by the stunningly amateur job of stitching athletes’
bio shots onto mock-up jerseys, giving the whole thing a sheen of
amateurism.
Who on earth buys the merch they were spruiking anyway?
Luckily, Chris Cote was note-perfect in his WWE-style announcing
the surfers as they came on stage, visibly cringing. I hope and
presume he was deliberately hamming this up.
At any rate, zero cheers were elicited from a seemingly absent
crowd.
It was a bit hard to get excited about, especially given recent
memories of Teahupo’o and the clips of pumping Pipe in the ad
breaks. Both provided comical juxtaposition to the annointed
Day-of-Days we were witnessing. It seemed almost like deliberate
mockery.
Kanoa limped out against an unsettlingly twitchy Italo, who
continued to vibrate throughout the day. The most memorable moment
of their heat came in the opening minutes as they both tried to
paddle into the same wave. Allegedly, priority had not been
established. No drama, no tension. The theme of the day.
Catching up with Connor Coffin in the booth (a surfer, if you
remember, no longer on Tour after dropping off at mid-season cut)
instead of excavating the tension between Kanoa and Italo was peak
WSL.
Ethan was next to fall to Italo’s silent rage, then Jack.
Honestly, I don’t recall a single moment from these heats worth
recounting here.
Two captivating surfers who emerged as contenders this year,
Ethan in his beauty and Jack in his mysticism, vaporised by Italo’s
relentless wave-catching and tail high reverses, as if they weren’t
worthy of being there in the first place.
What a waste of everything they did to get there. What a waste
of their artistry.
It wasn’t their fault, but the canvas they were given.
Trestles was always going to be a venue that punished Ethan and
Jack, two men raised on a steady diet of real waves. Their surfing
has been honed by power and consequence. To see them stunted by
Californian dribble fizzling over cobblestones felt a bit like
trapping their nature, squeezing it into some environment in which
it didn’t belong.
Ewing was an albatross in an aviary, wings clipped and saddened.
To see him force his back foot through turns on weak sections was
not only demoralising but borderline offensive.
Robinson was a caged lion. His great power was in there
somewhere, but he was doomed to pace back and forth, back and
forth, whilst the steel bars abraded his flanks and blood ran
freely onto the floor. We watched his season bleed out in that
Trestles cage, and it felt tragic to me.
This is a man whose surfing can be transcendent in waves that
most of us might only dream of. He has a capacity for power far
beyond ordinary.
That’s what it means to be the best in the world.
Critics of the format can feel armed and vindicated in citing
both Robinson’s and Ewing’s performances this year vs the way they
exited the conversation.
Both were extinguished by Italo’s sheer energy. Fifteen turns
and a few spins to the beach. Impressive in a way, but I couldn’t
help feeling pro surfing had taken a backwards step.
Filipe took the final match-up with Italo 2-0. Hardly a
surprise.
It struck me that Italo was at a significant disadvantage. He’d
surfed and been scored on three heats already. By the time of his
fourth and fifth, what else could he do to create a point of
difference?
You might reasonably point to Gilmore’s victory as a
counter-argument, but the repertoire of skills among women is less
diverse.
And, well, that was that. Season end.
I don’t have the good fortune, like Charlie Smith, to take the
temperature from Trestles’ famed cobblestones. Such is the pity,
for I would surely do sterling work on the ground.
I was where I’ve been all season for Finals Day, behind a
screen, with you. In many ways I suppose this is the real
experience. We’re the real fans.
But I’d be lying if I said I haven’t entertained waking reveries
over the course of this season, between classes, walking the dog,
in the midst of domestic squabbles…dreams of following the Tour
from stop to stop, Pipe to Portugal, Tahiti to Trestles, soaking it
all in, understanding what really happens.
That would be real reporting. I feel sure that observing the
machinations up close would result in wild and prolific stories.
And I would not be caught up in the bliss like WSL employees and
surf journos of old, wandering blinkered and salty from comp to
comp, doing half a job.
I would hold Kelly Slater’s steely gaze whilst justifying my
criticism.
I would count the beads of sweat on Filipe Toledo’s forehead as
Surfline issued event forecasts.
I would rap on Dave Prodan’s door and ask directly,
face-to-face, “Has Italo Ferreira been drug tested this season?
When and how often?”.
Are you listening, Eric Logan? If the WSL is such a burgeoning
success, with audiences swelling, revenues spiking, growth, growth,
growth, then where’s the money?
Real sports leagues have full-time, independent media to satiate
the desires of fans. The WSL has me, Shearer, a couple of
podcasters, and whatever Stab monkey is tasked to fill in the
pro-forma.
Pro surfing, ladies and gentlemen.
Irrelevant as it ever was.
But still, I can’t help feeling it could be better. Instead of
rolling out a list of pro surfing-adjacent hangers on – Tom Carroll
(god love him), Bethany Hamilton, Parker Coffin, Lisa Anderson, etc
– Rip Curl and the WSL could make a much better investment by
funding some independent voices rather than the same old WSL
employees and half-baked pros simply mailing it in.
I can’t for the life of me understand why most of them are still
in the fold.
They offer nothing.
Rosie’s flat. Joe is Joe. Even Ronnie’s lost his shine.
The new blood, Laura and Dimity, flashed then fizzled.
Did you listen to Laura yesterday? Absolutely nothing to
say.
And Kaipo. Man, Kaipo…
Once again – what hold does he have over the WSL brass? I’ve
rarely seen a more inept media personality.
The BBC were at my school yesterday to promote storytelling.
They had a small production team and a couple of media
personalities. When they invited audience questions, the majority
of 13 year-olds in the room did a better job than Kaipo. His
equivalency were the kids in the back row who kept sticking up
their hands to ask “what football team do you support?”, even
though their mates had already asked the same question, twice, and
even though the answer had been “I’m sorry, but I don’t really
follow football.”
The success of the new format can be debated, but the WSL
product as a whole is still failing even its most ardent
supporters.
Whilst the result was ultimately reasonable for the men, and the
weather fine enough, to paraphrase Joseph Conrad in Heart of
Darkness, for me there was a black bank of clouds and my feelings
flowed sombre and unrequited under an overcast sky.
And whilst this might not exactly lead into the heart of an
immense darkness, and no matter how Logan’s hype machine might spin
it, professional surfing, as a product, remains in a gathering
dusk.
Regardless, it’s been fun to share it with you, loyal
Beachgritters. Real people with real opinions. I hope you value
this place, as I do, as a place where individual voices can always
be heard.
In a world of spin, that’s truly worth something.
Thanks for sharing a few with me.
