Lower Trestles.
Fans of professional surfing at its very highest level were thrown into great confusion, yesterday, with the announcement of a new big-wave event “activated” by Surfline. Titled “Twenty Foot Plus,” promises to “chronicle the world’s best big-wave surfers in the heaviest waves on Earth. And on the very best days, Surfline will broadcast the action live, from multiple angles, in ways guaranteed to take it all next level.”
Exciting, but, World Surf League enthusiasts immediately began scratching their heads, wondering if they had somehow already missed the show. Surfline, as you know, is the official forecasting partner for the aforementioned League and, regularly, declares that swells for the events are certain to reach at least twenty feet.
“We wanted to put our careers in our own hands,” notable big wave stud Jamie Mitchell told the website. “We’ve got a bunch of surfers and we’re heading in the right direction. We want to write our own path for big-wave surfing. I would expect big, different, more creative things that maybe haven’t been seen before. I want to see a young guy like Luca Padua, for example, have a gateway to a professional career in big-wave surfing. I want these young girls coming up to see a career path as well — that’s what we’re setting out to do.”
Might Mitchell, Padua, Koa Rothman, Kai Lenny et. al. have already surfed a stunning heat at the Oi Rio Pro or Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach that was simply missed?
Is Filipe Toledo a big-wave surfer?
As die-hard professional surfing aficionados go back into the 2022 contest vault looking for signs of Mark Healy there are, currently, more questions than answers.