The fundamental requirement for success in this game lies between your ears. This rarefied power manifests in different guises.
It’s a human failing to dwell on the vagaries of the universe, things like weather or luck.
Given days like this, and there will be more, I’ll endeavor not to harp on about how poor the waves are.
When the Grand Dame of Aquatic Jiggery Pokery, or whatever JMD is calling herself this week, is faced with an event window like this, without promise nor hope, there seems little point in complaining.
What we have is what we have. Make the best of it or go home.
Make or break.
Poor pro surfers sent out to duel for their careers in an arena not fit for purpose.
Just when I was starting to believe that God had a peculiar kink for professional surfing.
Really, what he (or she or they) love more is a trier. Today, and perhaps for the remainder of the event window, it is the surfers with the greatest mental fortitude who will triumph.
Talent be damned. This is pro surfing.
And it’s a cruel game.
Not everyone is built for it.
Maxime Huscenot is likely not built for it. Not from what we’ve seen in two events. And not if you can’t catch two waves in an elimination heat.
In a very different way, Ultimate Surfer Zeke Lau is not built for it. Tonight he will question the universe and the WSL.
He will question the rotten luck of a terrible forecast for an event that should be his strongest in the whole calendar.
He will question the priority rules that led to his second scoring wave being struck off in his elimination heat.
And not for the first time, he will question his short tenure on the WCT.
The fundamental requirement for success in this game lies between your ears. This rarefied power manifests in different guises.
You could be calculating and analytical, like Slater.
Or on the path to Zen, like Jack Robinson.
Or perhaps just have the sort of dogged determination revered by Australians yet characterised best by Brazilians.
A trio of the latter, Gabriel Medina, Sammy Pupo and Yago Dora made the best of what was on offer today and advanced through their heats in first position.
It strikes me that these are three men you might bet on in any conditions, a judgement based on their heads as well as their talent.
“It’s not Sunset, it’s just an ordinary beachbreak,” said Dora after his win and in reference to his pre-heat mindset.
It was a statement that might be construed as criticism if taken out of context. But what it demonstrated was his flexibility when it comes to performing with a vest on. Who cares what the waves are doing, we’re here to compete.
One man you should never bet on is Kolohe Andino. Yet today you’d have been handsomely rewarded.
Andino surfed with a looseness that hasn’t been evident in quite some time in defeating Jordy and Leo in his Round 1 heat.
What caught my attention was the cognitive dissonance I felt at seeing Andino win a heat. The idea of a Kolohe Andino event win, let alone a world title run, seems like an impossible scenario in 2023.
How far our faith has drifted in ten years from America’s favourite son.
Strider brought his own, peculiar brand of idiom mangling to the booth. Some of it goes down like a brick shit sandwich, the rest can be quite endearing.
According to him, Calum Robson is “a steak and potatoes guy who lays bricks”.
Translation: good fundamentals.
Regardless, this sort of mumbo jumbo is preferable to some others.
Is it curious that Joe Turpel isn’t here, given they’ve moved just down the road a couple of days after Pipe?
Changes from last year’s programming are also evident in the fact that the Make Or Break crew have been less conspicuous. They’re certainly on the North Shore, or at least were, according to two of the producers I spoke with recently.
It seems there might be a glimpse of an ok forecast to look forward to tomorrow, and likely a very full day of overlapping heats.
Look forward to Filipe Toledo vs Eli Hanneman in Heat 9 as a battle between two of the fastest surfers in the water. And Heat 14, where Joao Chianca meets Yago Dora, is sure to be a treat.
Winning surfers don’t dwell on the weather. This game’s about more than that.
talk is cheap, real writing needs whiskey. 3.0. form solid LLC.
what time do we storm the tower?
sorry you have to write about this JP.
Today fared better, but I think JMD has to throw the tiki doll away that Greg Brady gave her.
i got a full house. the rest are from Stamo’s released letters; (need place of origin) he’s a back-up drummer if we loose stickman. call Ginger~ HE BAKES FOR EVERYONE~
Calling his interference “career ending” is over the top. Dude can perpetually win Haleiwa and Ericeira on the challenger series. That said, WSL only has two events listed on it’s challenge schedule (Oz), so maybe there is no next year.
We can only hope
Zeke’s continued folly made me chuckle so i scrolled (trolled) to his IG to see if he had anything to say about it. Instead of any interference reaction I saw a post that he just had a kid. …Heading out now to question my character and maybe create a gofundhim.
It would be surprising if any of the comment crew were on salary. Instead being contracted, subbed in and out, keeping confidence in check, so that none can ask for the ROI implied by Elo’s grand statements about all time… well, everything. To think they would approach the comment crew lineup in a similar way as the tour’s mid year cut is not hard to imagine.
But will he question his Apple Watch, considering one promise was that it would help in exactly those situations?
Technology. I miss my old 2004 manual single cab standard bed Tacoma. Change oil every 5-10k and the thing ran like a dream. Never an issue.
This all tells me Waida is a threat to anyone drifting in the back half of the pack.
I think everyone might be sensing that!
“Ultimate Surfer Zeke Lau is not built for it. Tonight he will question the universe and the WSL.”
It’s not the universe or WSL that he should question, but his character that led him to this point.
“Or perhaps just have the sort of dogged determination revered by Australians yet characterised best by Brazilians.” Boom. Like clockwork. Nice one, JP–getting into a good grove yourself as the contest has dragged along.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c….
Excellent observation by JP
So excellent, yes, gawd, hes right about that. Oooooeee!!!
JP nailing it, unlike the forecast or Lau. Those JMD titles a gift that will never stop giving.
On Joe’s absence, I seem to remember him missing one contest last season.
Yeah I think they all get a break for one or two, just seems odd given the proximity of these ones.
We’re talking about The WSL here
Speaking of Make or Break, I sat down to watch the first episode of the golf docu-series on Netflix last night. I don’t have any particular interest one way or another in golf, but it was terribly boring. Have we already reached saturation point with these shows?
I’ve wondered that. It has become a little formulaic.
DTS was immediately exciting, I think the others are more slow burners.
Once you have heard one pampered sportsperson compare playing a sport to waging a war, you have heard them all!
So so true … the tennis one was unbearable. Haven’t watched golf. Appears F-1 caught lightning, so to speak, the others not so much
.
lol
Give it time, it gets way better
I will, the Rory Phil storyline looks like it will be interesting
Fitzpatrick & Finu stories were good
Does Patrick Reed make an appearance?
Nice write up cunt. But watch Khloe reign supreme and gift me 2600.00. It’s his hundredth comp. It’s written in the stars. Cunt. Xox
I was thinking of you!
Watch me collect the bickies!!!
Unpopular opinion here but Zeke was absolutely screwed by the WSL at Sunset beach once again. How did it take the priority judge a minute and a half to change priority?
Because fuck Zeke.
Harsh but fair
So who do you marry and kill?
Let’s keep it inside the same heat.
Marry Laura, kill Zeke after I fuck him.
Actually in all seriousness his lack of venting on the socials has me worried. Is he in his garage welding up one of those super bulldozer tank like things that American dude went mental in, or concocting something more silent and sinister?
The last time he got screwed at Sunset by the WSL he took a few days to get his thoughts together before posting a fair and intelligent description of what had occurred. As for the Ibelli incident, Zeke wasn’t wrong, and we all know Ibelli cost Medina a world championship by playing the priority game!
https://youtu.be/Qc717umDOuY
Longtom (I think, could be another site) is reporting that Leo even yelled at Zeke to not go for the wave. But yeah, dude bagged giant Waimea and was an early season and also Da Hui Pipe standout, and here he is at the end of the Hawaii tour skunked and done.
Leo said as much in his post heat interview. Apparently Zeke was trying to help out his good mate Leo get through the heat. I’m not gone on team tactics in individual sports, but it doesn’t seem to be against the rules.
Moral of the story. Don’t be friends with Leo.
But Rio is from the same team
Zeke and Leo are friends. Doesn’t seem to be about who is sponsoring them