World Surf League turns greenwashing dial up to eleven while celebrating World Ocean Day: “We Like Turtles!”

Saving the earth one fib at a time!

Per the press release:

This World Ocean Day and every day, the World Surf League (WSL) and its WSL One Ocean initiative are committed to protecting and preserving our one ocean for generations to come.

WSL One Ocean engages fans, hosts event-based activations throughout the WSL Championship Tour season, and funds ocean protection around the world through the WSL PURE Grant Program. WSL is an early signatory to the recently announced Sports for Nature Declaration, pledging to deliver transformative nature-positive action by 2030 and beyond.

WSL Asks Fans to “Speak Up for the Ocean” By Sharing Sustainability Stories

To celebrate World Ocean Day on June 8, WSL One Ocean is launching its “Speak Up for the Ocean” campaign. This campaign asks fans to share their stories and sustainability initiatives through social media with the hashtag #WSLOneOcean. The WSL will use its platform to amplify the voices of people around the world who are taking action to protect our ocean and encourage others to do the same, with the goal of building a community of surfers, fans and ocean lovers around the world who are aligned with protecting our one ocean

To learn more, please visit WSLOneOcean.org.

And/or.

To the WSL community,

I want to address the conversation that happened in our community following the recent Championship Tour event at the Surf Ranch. As you likely know, a small number of athletes made statements questioning the judging of the competition and the final results.

I want to respond directly to those statements, however, we first need to address a much more important issue. In recent days, a number of surfers, WSL judges, and employees have been subject to harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence, including death threats, as a direct result of those statements. Those things should never happen in our sport or any sport, and we’re devastated that members of our community have been subject to them. It is an important reminder to us all that words have consequences. We hope the entire WSL community stands with us in rejecting all forms of harassment and intimidation.

In terms of the statements made, we completely reject the suggestion that the judging of our competitions is in any way unfair or biased. These claims are not supported by any evidence.

Firstly, the judging criteria are provided to the athletes ahead of each competition. All athletes competing at the Surf Ranch Pro received these materials on May 20th. Every athlete had the opportunity to ask questions about the criteria at that time. None of the athletes who made these statements took advantage of this opportunity at the Surf Ranch Pro.

Secondly, our rules allow any athlete to review the scoring of any wave, with the judges, and receive a more detailed explanation of how they were scored with the judges. This process has been in place for a number of years, and is the direct result of working with the surfers to bring more transparency to the judging process. It is not acceptable, and is a breach of league policy, for surfers to choose not to engage with the proper process and instead air grievances on social media.

A number of athletes at the Surf Ranch Pro received points for elements such as progression and variety, so it is simply incorrect to suggest these are not taken into account in the judging criteria. Furthermore, our rules have been applied consistently throughout the season, including at events this season that were won by athletes who are now questioning those same rules.

Surfing is an ever-evolving, subjective sport and we welcome a robust debate around the progression of our sport and the criteria used to judge our competitions. However, it is unacceptable for any athlete to question the integrity of our judges who, like our surfers, are elite professionals.

No one person or group of people are above the integrity of the sport.

Sincerely,
Erik Logan
WSL Chief Executive Officer


Kelly and Gabriel, talking turkey and, inset, death threat to Ethan Ewing after his controversial win. | Photo: @tsherms/Steve Sherman

In bombshell interview, Kelly Slater sides with judges in Surf Ranch Pro imbroglio, “To say it is a rip off or a crime, that bothers me… Ethan beat Gabriel. Other people (I trust) watched it (and) thought Ethan won the heat”

"I watched it a half dozen times to compare frontside to backside, rights to lefts. I think it was a fair result."

Just as the heat started to simmer on the Surf Ranch Pro imbroglio where WSL judges were accused of  ineptitude, bias and, by swarms of Brazilian surf fans, racism, after Gabriel Medina’s loss to Ethan Ewing in his quarter-final and Italo Ferreira in the final against Colapinto, Kelly Slater has weighed into the fray. 

To recap, read “Australian surfer Ethan Ewing threatened with death following controversial win”, “Gabriel Medina pens open letter to WSL complaining of ‘shocking’ judging” and “Pro surfing in chaos as its biggest stars turn on WSL and CEO Erik Logan”. 

In an interview with The Inertia mostly concerning Kelly’s new environmental turtle sandals the KLLY, talk turned, briefly, to the fracas, 

“With anything subjective, you’re going to have errors. If something is even close, how do you objectively say for sure something was a rip off or crime? But to say (a result) is a rip off or a crime, that bothers me – claiming it’s a crime (that Medina lost). I thought Ethan beat Gabriel. I rewatched the heat a few times. Other people (I trust) watched it, who are very in the know. I won’t name any names, but they thought Ethan won the heat. His best ride was definitely his right. That’s not to say anything against Gabe. I thought he was awesome and he has definitely been the best guy out there. I didn’t pay attention to the live heat, but I was surprised to hear he had lost. I watched it a half dozen times to compare frontside to backside, rights to lefts. I think it was a fair result. I’m not sure about Italo and Griff’s heat. I haven’t looked at it as closely. People said that Ethan’s air (against Medina) wasn’t as good and I was like, ‘what are you talking about?’ To land on the nose, get it around in that section. That’s extremely difficult.”

Kelly also hinted at an exit from the tour in 2025, aged fifty three.

“Yeah, I definitely want to surf this year, then next,” he said. “It’s an Olympic year and I want to see if I can make the team. I haven’t made any formal announcement or anything but if I surf this year, then next, I think that’ll probably be good. I’ve done enough. But who knows? I could win one of these next few events and just feel like, ‘that’s it, that’s enough, I’m good.’”


Open Thread: Comment Live as John John Florence, Filipe Toledo and other stars paddle day six of the ISA World Surfing Games!

The stars have come out to shine!


Photo: IWT
Photo: IWT

World Surf League shaken to core as International Windsurf Tour hosts “most legendary wave-riding competition in recorded history” at pumping Cloudbreak!

When it rains it pours.

It has been a helluva week for the World Surf League. The troubles began at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in inland Lemoore, California which just so happened to be stop six on the re-imagined Championship Tour neé Dream Tour. The professional surfers not at the tippy top were not allowed to attend, as they had been publicly decapitated at stop number five. Still, eighteen men and an equal number of eleven women donned the singlet and sat in the tub, waiting their turn to mark snaps in the mechanical wake. Nia Peeples’ ex-husband was in the VIP section but otherwise things at the Surf Ranch Pro were as they had been for the last three-ish years.

Boring.

Boring, that is, until the end when three Filipe Toledo, Gabriel Medina and Italo Ferreira, currently 3, 6 and 11 respectively and each former champions, took to social media to complain about the judging. That spark lit a fire so large that the World Surf League was forced to respond. Chief Executive Erik Logan took it upon himself and wrote an open letter filled with victim shaming and scorn.

It made things worse.

Since then Lonely-Boy Logan has been abandoned by his colleagues and the League itself has gone into full head-in-sand mode waiting for the Brazilian Storm to pass.

Well, across the ocean, the non-billionaire funded International Windsurf Tour has just hosted what is being called “one of the most legendary wave-riding competition days recorded in history” in absolutely pumping Cloudbreak.

Five athletes competed and it looked like this.

Windsurfing, which was thought to have gone extinct in the mid-1980s, able to do what regular surfing could not.

i.e. hold a contest in pumping Cloudbreak.

But how much shame do you imagine Erik Logan, World Surf League Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer, et. al. are feeling right now?

Enough so slap windsurfing with an open letter?

To the IWT community,

I want to address the conversation that happened in our community following the recent Championship Tour event at the Surf Ranch. As you likely know, a small number of athletes made statements questioning the judging of the competition and the final results then you jerks went off and held the contest our fans wanted us to hold at Cloudbreak.

I want to respond directly to those statements, however, we first need to address a much more important issue. In recent days, a number of surfers, WSL judges, and employees have been subject to harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence, including death threats, as a direct result of those statements. Those things should never happen in our sport or any sport, and we’re devastated that members of our community have been subject to them. It is an important reminder to us all that words have consequences. We hope the entire WSL community stands with us in rejecting all forms of harassment and intimidation. But you guys, completely un-chill to swoop Cloudbreak.

In terms of the statements made, we completely reject the suggestion that the judging of our competitions is in any way unfair or biased. These claims are not supported by any evidence because the small number of athletes who made them are Brazilian and… well, you might have Brazilians in windsurfing too so…

Back to your event though, please stop holding them in good surf and if you don’t stop I’ll be forced to come and rest my hand upon your thigh or make a t-shirt of your naked chest.

Sincerely,
Erik Logan
WSL Chief Executive Officer


Black surfer-filmmaker says he was shamed into quitting sport “by my own community that felt a black boy shouldn’t be surfing or skating”

"(At Rockaway) I found a new place, a new home. I saw black skaters. I saw black owners. It was beautiful. I felt like I had found a home."

The Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn took surfing from Mosiah Moonsammy.

Bed-Stuy has the raw, uncanny ability to take even the most private, hidden things you love from you in a Bainbridge street minute.

Sean Carter spoke of Bed-Stuy as a “hard knock life, from the dope spot, with the smoke glock, Fleein’ the murder scene.”

While they make your Cafè con leche, local bodega owners can feel out your mood quicker than a Harlem local under the L train at 125th street at 2AM on a Friday. Turning their little corner store into a confession booth without you even realizing.

Mosiah is a director and reborn surfer and skater. His first project, “Last Bodega in Brooklyn” won critical acclaim. His second, “Black Surfers in the Concrete Jungle” is in the works.

Exactly how did his surf mojo get seized?

“I started to begin to surf when I was about 9 years old and skating and surfing were in sync for me. I loved doing these two things and I loved being in the water. But I got a lot of push-back from my own community that felt like a black boy shouldn’t be surfing or skating. I should be playin ‘ball. I should be playing football. and because of what I was being told it developed insecurities which ultimately led me to not skating and not surfing.”

His flame flickered, but never went out.

In a voice with a cadence that lulls you into submission he tells us,

“The first love I’ve ever had was the water… and I never saw people that looked like me so for a long time I felt by myself in the water. And it took the discovery of Rockaway. I found a new place, a new home. I saw black skaters. I saw black owners. I saw the rippers. I saw the queens. I saw… the….in-gen-u-ity… and it was beautiful. I felt like I had found a home…. in this water I didn’t feel so alone. and now… I discovered a new piece of myself. I found community. I found unity. I found us… and it inspired me to get back in the water and get back surfing the way that I used to.”

Mosiah met Nigel, the owner of Stations in Rockaway Beach. Nigel introduced Mosiah to a new community of surfers that breathed vitality into a shunned and forgotten life.

Mosiah’s new project centers around Nigel and his journey through surf.

The Gofundme clip will make ya wanna bust out the debit card and be a part of reason this project comes to light.

Author’s  note: Mosiah was raised in Florida. This is the place where he got his original push-back from his community about a black boy doing a white boys sport. He has family in Brooklyn. When he would go to visit, he would get similar flack from his peers. But as the saying goes, Florida taketh, New York takes, but will give back depending on your reaction. Yes, The BK can throw it’s flack, but its a test. To see if you can hang with the pneuma of The City. And Mosiah did, with a little help from Rockaway. The City can flip you that way. Then it’ll turn ‘ya right side up if you can prove yourself. Moaish tells me, “With this level of exposure, I can show people that it is possible to go outside the norms and its ok. That things you love can be taken from you, but you can always take them back.”