And who's the former world champ looking "hit or miss…kinda off, maybe riding new boards"?

Only one week ago you read about the Australian-born husband of Lakey Peterson, Thomas Allen, who was announced winner of the WSL’s Fantasy League, beating a field of over one-hundred thousand entrants.

The thirty-three-year-old Victorian, an osteopath who works on tour with his craft’s mix of chiropractic spinal manipulations and physio soft tissue work, won exactly nothing for his supreme triumph although the lesson clearly is, when Thomas talks surf, you listen. 

After that lil story, I was hit up by pals and strangers for his inside picks for Finals Day, as if I was a regular conduit for his wisdom. 

And, so, on what is likely the eve of the world title showdown at Lowers, BeachGrit telephoned Thomas at his and Lakey’s San Clemente home, which is also the billet for twenty-year-old Australian contender Molly Pickles.

First, and most important, is the swell’s been downgraded according to Thomas’ pal and San Clemente legend Mike Parsons. When I ask Thomas how big he thinks, we go through the whole, well, California size, Australia size? I choose Victorian-size, which equates, he says, to two-to-three foot with slightly bigger sets, maybe four foot if you squint your eyes. 

He says he hasn’t been watching the warm-up every day but today he was down there, saw the who’s who of Finals Day, including contest favourite Filipe getting in their reps. 

So, yeah, small swell, who you gonna pick? 

“Filipe, one hundred percent. When he’s switched on he’s kinda untouchable. But, Griffin, if he goes lights out, surfing 110 percent t and he starts landing all his stuff, he could almost match Filipe who has that speed that is hard to match for a lot of the boys. Unless he has a full brain-far day, screws up priority, his baseline surfing is hard to beat. 

How about Ethan Ewing, who crawled out of a Tahitian invalid ward? Can he do the impossible? 

“He looks fricken…good. Everyone’s been talking about it. All the attention is on Griffin and Filipe and he’s in the shadows, honestly. He doesn’t even look like he’s been injured. He’s riding some shorter board that looks like an epoxy but whatever it is, it’s fitting in super good, he’s doing those little blow tails, all that Ethan stuff that is phenomenal. He’s a little dark horse. Everything thinks he’s injured but he could stomp through the rounds especially if Griffin has an off heat or Filipe gets a little sleepy.” 

World number five Joao Chianca, he says, “has been surfing really good for him (but) the other three (Griffin, Filipe and Ethan) are on a different intensity. If everything were to go his way, for sure, any of the boys could march through and take anyone down. And, Jackie Robbo, he’s cool, he’s ripping, everything looks nice and methodical but, again, on a slightly different insanity to the other three. Fricken Filipe, you can’t go past Filipe. Unless he has a bad day he’ll be number one.” 

The women, real interesting, and Caroline Marks, he thinks, is the gal to beat. 

“She’s been fricken deadly the last few days. She’s so obviously got Lowers figured out. Every wave she takes off on it’s a seven-five or above. In saying that, she doesn’t have the variety of the other girls, it’s pretty repetitive, and the judges might be hyper-critical in this event. It’s backhand turn, backhand turn, backhand turn. They’re phenomenal, twelve o’clocks every turn, but I feel like if Molly (Picklum) or Caity (Simmers) click in and get into their variety, land a little air reverse off the end the judges are going to eat it up. 

“But, if you slip up, Caroline’s going to have to two seven-fives or above and you’re going to have to better that. You can’t win with a nine and a three.” 

How about Carissa, two heats and she’s got title number six. 

“She looks solid, not making mistakes, finishing waves really well. I haven’t seen her go for any airs yet. She’s similar to Caroline, getting the job done with sevens and eights.” 

Real hard to pick, says Thomas, is Tyler Wright, world number two.

“I’ve seen her surf three times now, and she’s …yeah… looks a little hit or miss. I saw her get one really good wave, a little blow tail reverse deal. (Overall) she kinda looked a little off, maybe riding new boards, a little off with new equipment first few days rolled in. Freesurfing all year she never looked the best or the most in-form but in a heat you’d watch and think, ‘Where did she pull that out of it?’ She could do it but I feel like Caroline and Riss have her number.” 

Watch and comment live on BeachGrit tomoz or maybe the next day or maybe even the thirteenth (new south swell.) 

“It was so confronting… That whole thing was a colossal mess.”

The two-time world champ Tyler Wright, who is three heats away from winning a third crown, has given a bombshell interview with Australia’s Fairfax Press, revealing more detail on her troubled relationship with Daddy Rob, why surf culture sucks and, in a devastating blow to the WSL, how she was silenced over her views on trannies in sport.

Wright, who is twenty-nine, sure don’t hold back when she gets the mic, welcome given the stiffness of surfer media interviews although her views are not always popular with the proletariat who, rightly or wrongly, don’t see the problem in someone being pushed into a sport that has made them a world champ and a millionaire.

(Keen readers will note Wright’s net worth got shaved a little when Shane Maree Hatton, a family friend of the Wrights who managed the Wright’s cash, stole $586,805.07 from her. Owen got fleeced of $818,642.80, Mikey, $151,201.23, and their mum and Dad, Rob and Fiona, lost $81,025.29. Hatton used the money to pursue her love of horses and games of chance.)

Anyway, you know an interview with Tyler ain’t gonna be dull.

In the story, she fires fusillade after fusillade, at culture, her daddy, the WSL etc.

“Sometimes I get so let down by the surfing community that I feel like quitting.”

“I thought I was gonna die.”

“When I look at surfing, for years I wrestled with my anger towards surfing because of how it’s positioned itself in the world of progressiveness. ‘We’re counterculture, we’re inclusive… My experience of surfing from a young age was definitely not that.”

“I think WSL having the (trans) policy is amazing. It’s inclusive, it’s moving forward … But it was so confronting, that to a certain extent I was being told to keep quiet, keep my head down because of this blow-up.I didn’t say much and I still don’t, [because] obviously it’s wildly confronting for someone like me to be in the crossroads of this.”

“I believe in inclusivity and equality. It doesn’t just come and go when I like it.”

“You know what I did? I quietly quit in certain spaces. But not in the spaces that matter most to me.”
“Sometimes I get an hour to take some pain relief. Other times I get nothing, my body goes into such severe pain and shock that I’ll just start throwing up.”

A little warm-up read for Finals Day tomoz! 

Even if Toledo deserves the title on the day it will leave a sour taste in the mouths of some. Don’t be surprised if this sways the judges.

The end of the year is upon us. A time to reflect, a time to heal. But not before we deal with the immediate future, the big hurrah: The Final Five at Trestles’ famed and overrated cobblestones!

Try as they might, the WSL just don’t seem able to conjure any anticipation for this, their grand showcase. Everything they do seems flimsy, somehow. More chintzy high school prom than world title showdown.

Has your phone been buzzing away with god-awful WSL notifications too?

How bad is that content? How can it be so bad?

So busy. Such blandness. Such sanitised, homogenous pish.

Whatever happens next within that organisation, they need to hire some professionals, ideally people who actually surf and care. The quality of their media output is so lacklustre, so amateur, that I almost never look at it. Which leaves me wondering: who is? I mean, it’s part of my job to take an interest in this stuff, but they offer nothing of substance, and nothing that doesn’t come with a sheen of try-hard flimsiness.

What about those jerseys? Are they the most embarrassing merchandise ever cooked up by an apparently professional sporting organisation? You’d be forgiven for assuming that all creative work had already been outsourced to a primitive chatbot. If not, it should be.

And the practice session stream…what the actual fuck was that? Aside from Erin Brooks, who seems quite lovely, it was an abomination.

Clearly, the WSL still has a serious identity crisis. It doesn’t know if it’s they, them or ze. It’s an ongoing problem for pro surfing, but not more so than in the last couple of years. It’s not serious or organised enough to be defined as a proper sport (and the cap don’t really fit) but embracing the stoner Cali vibe just makes it look like an idiot.

Regardless, we’ll watch the Finals in spite of them, and here’s what to make of the men:

JACK

When my partner was pregnant she lost an entire load of washing. She found it later. In the freezer, obviously.

Another morning she texted me in a panic from work. Had I seen her phone? Had she left it in the van when I’d dropped her off? She couldn’t find it anywhere!

Have you checked your hand? I asked.

Baby brain’s a real thing. For someone like Jack, who likes (needs) to keep a tight leash on the mush between his ears, it could be a killer.

As a man and a surfer, I’m a fan. This Tour is better for the presence of Jack Robinson, his tube wizardry, and his latent psychopathy.

Does any of that mean I think he can beat Ethan, Griff or Filipe at Trestles? Not likely.

And he does need to have a word with whoever is advising him on the non-endemic fashion alignments and his general social media output, because it is crrriiiiiinnngggeee. “Reminiscing on my first times in the ocean with the clean scent of #PoloBlue” he says in one post, whilst wearing an unbuttoned white shirt, holding a bottle of aftershave and looking constipated.

See you next year, Jack. Your washing’s in the freezer.

JOAO

Joao announced himself on Tour this year with great vengeance and furious anger by hammering and slicing his way to world number one in the early part of the season. Three semi-finals and a victory in the first five events is no fluke.

There remains the sense that Chianca will be most at home in meaty waves rather than dribbly cobblestone points, and taking the title at Trestles from his position seems unlikely. But it won’t be his last shot. Though a little skittish and elbowy at times, Chianca attacks sections like they killed his pets.

I find Joao an intriguing character. The contrast between his softly spoken interviews, where he professes gratitude and humility, and his tear-your-face-off, paddle around, over, up and in you approach in the water is truly fascinating. He comes from the Brazilian school of surfing that enjoys blood in the water, it doesn’t matter who it belongs to. If we had a whole Tour of guys like this pro surfing would be a mainstream sport.

He said it best himself: cold blood, warm heart. (Though I’m not totally buying the latter.)

Don’t be surprised if he wins his first match-up against Robinson through sheer force of animal energy. If you believe in more, bet on it. You’ll get 25/1 and more from most bookmakers.

ETHAN

If you’d asked me about Ewing’s chances a week ago I’d have told you they were adjacent to zero. Not because he supposedly had a broken back (medical marvel or misreported?) but because I just don’t think he has the game to tackle Filipe in small to medium waves.

However, to Antipodean delight, I’ve got a little inkling that we might see Ewing make it all the way to a match-up with Filipe after all.

Beyond the capacity for superhuman healing, Ewing has otherworldly, picture-perfect style that make fifty-year-old men weak at the knees. And, as has been well established throughout the course of this season, the judges (and the surf industry, for that matter) are largely men in their fifties and sixties. Ethan might as well be a winsome blonde au pair.

He’d be a popular world champ, a victory for aesthetics and eugenics. He can lay a surfboard on a rail like almost no-one else in the world.

Unfortunately Filipe Toledo is almost no-one else.

GRIFFIN

Little Griff has won my heart this year. Underneath all the self-help psychobabble there’s just a homeschooled simpleton waiting to break free, eat crisp sandwiches and rub Nutella all over his face.

Only the sourest of pusses (or Brazilian fans) could dislike Griffin, smiling widely and nodding along to his little rap beats, imagining he’s straight gangster. To be fair, men like him have propped up the rap industry for years. Nothing quite says gangster like homeschooling, golf carts, and second and third homes at the beach.

Regardless, he’s here on merit. He has the game to beat Filipe, and homefield advantage. More importantly, Toledo knows it.

And if he doesn’t? Well we can read all about it in pidgin English on Instagram, via a photo of a crumpled diary piece covered in snot and tears.

Ah, 2023.

FILIPE

For most, Filipe has been a lock for this world title all year. Not just because he’s our reigning champ, but because no-one in the world generates speed and explosiveness in small to medium waves like he does.

I like the big hair he’s sporting this season. I like that he looks like a grubby little taxi driver, with eyes that will almost certainly rob you. But above all I like how fast he goes, how he generates speed like he has jets.

And I especially admire his sickle-like turns. And yes, they are as good as Ethan’s. Not quite as stylish, perhaps, but technically perfect.

He’ll need to sound out the judges. Do they want carves and flow? Or would they prefer some balls-out aerials? No matter for Filipe, he can do it all. If he puts his laces through one early it’s game over. If Griff or Ethan get a jump on him we’ll be in for a match.

But even if Toledo deserves the title on the day (and because he’s earned the number one spot this season) it will leave a sour taste in the mouths of some. Don’t be surprised if this sentiment bubbling below the surface sways the judges into some controversial decisions.

Don’t be surprised if we have a world title marred by judging controversy. Wouldn’t that be an appropriate reflection of the season and the organisation?

Ironically, as a distraction from the gaudy production, it might also be the best thing for them.

I’m off to place some bets.