Surfing not even in Kelly Slater’s top five!
Only yesterday ESPN released their definitive list of “sports ranked by degree of difficulty” with surfing filling the lowly twenty-third position barely beating badminton and well behind tennis, volleyball and squash.
According to ESPN, the results were compiled by “our panel of experts, a group made up of sports scientists from the United States Olympic Committee, of academicians who study the science of muscles and movement, of a star two-sport athlete, and of journalists who spend their professional lives watching athletes succeed and fail.”
“Surfing doesn’t generally feel easy but, apparently, it is,” wrote BeachGrit’s Charlie Smith.
In a sharp turnaround, an exhaustive online poll had surfing facing off with soccer as the hardest sport of them all.
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Pubity Sport, which is a satellite of the Pubity Group, “biggest Gen Z publisher in the world” asked its two million followers, “What sports are the hardest to play?”
And Kelly Slater, the greatest athlete of them all, across all sports, genres and so on, dived into the comments, as is his wont, to divest anyone of the notion that surfing, or soccer, could possibly be that hard.
“I wouldn’t rate soccer but I don’t play,” writes Kelly Slater. “I wold say skating, free soloing, F1, MMA, gymnastics etc are all at the cutting edge of ability for humans.”
Which is pretty true.
Anyway, after the results were compiled, soccer came in as the runaway number one, hardest sport in the world, garnering seventy percent of the votes to surfing’s thirty.
Soccer fans were unusually quiet as surfers, and those surf-adjacent, defended the profound and delicate act of balancing on a surfboard and gliding magnificently shoreward, gods and goddesses in human form.
People can’t even balance on a bicycle and say surfing is not hard
Throw a football player on a big wave and see what happens
This is the worst thing anyone has ever done on the internet.
Etc.
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Slater is admitting that mens pro surfing is stagnant. Nathan Florence is the only one taking steps forward. Everyone is is making minor refinements of things guys have been doing in heats since the mid to late 90’s.
Agreed, he is fully committed. Also agree on baker / deathwish, although I find Pedro Delfino’s parts equal parts compelling and terrifying.
Soccer is objectively easy to play. You kick them ball with your feet – that’s it. Sure, might be hardest one to make it as a pro due to number of people competing, but that’s a different question.
You need to be incredibly skilled to do anything that would credibly be called figure skating. You need to be both skilled and amazingly fit to make it through a quarter of water polo, let alone a whole game.
This whole debate is dumb as toast but it sure is fun to get heated about
i imagine kelly daydreams himself a free soloist. it just feels right.
Kelly is right about Free Soloing. That’s the peak right there.
Watch Free Solo (2018) and then The Alpinist (2021) to hear Alex, the star of Free Solo describe how insane what Marc-Andre LeClerc, the star of The Alpinist is doing. Truly insane shit.
The only crazier thing I’ve ever heard is when I found out that one man has swam from the source to the mouth of the 7 longest rivers in the world. I couldn’t believe that until I looked it up after.
The Blades of Glory scissoring scene is the hardest I’ve ever laughed in a cinema.
I’d buy Will Ferrell a beer if I ever see him to thank him for that one.
Surfing IS pretty easy…
if you started around age 7.
Is retirement a sport?
Asking for a friend.
What about 12 ounce curls?
wearing a kegger helmet with two quarter barrels. 7.5 gals X 2 = 15 gallon hat
extreme. the ultimate for a ‘B’ type personality. ‘A’s may need some time to adjust…
when it comes to technical skills, difficulty, athleticism…….big balls…..and injuries, skateboarding has to be one of the hardest sports in the world.
I love watching it as it’s mental the skills, commitment and ability to deal with slams that are required to be a pro. This just part just dropped and is mental; https://youtu.be/qU0m3LAq3o…
I once took off my skate and tried to stab someone with it
That fight you got into with Bob Barker on the golf course was epic. Shooter McGavin is a kook.
broadway dancing? record losses at the stage?
Chas! But isn’t Rollerblading the most difficult?! And what was the hardest part again?!
Xox
Surely it’s free soloing for the win? You have to be very very good not to suffer from a fatal gravity interaction.
My question is which sports have the worst internet technician’s.
what’s the theme tonight? shaved ice with a blue favor? facebook and Pickle’s from Longtom’s adjacent site…credit where credit due. file dat memo! ex-stacy my wife…
Spit, swallow or gargle?
red man. youth b-ball. work up a chew and swallow…never chewed again!
retracted, not!
black women months & redman dips
What’s Longtom’s site?
SWELLNET. but ya gonna have to dig ’round the surf reports…
And the Tim Bonython love…jeezus fucken wept. If I want slomo I’ll get on the smack!
mork ^ mindy/ ws qrite qeirw code…corp spoke…
I need an enigma machine for that one
emerson, lake ^ palmer…from the beginning…Puerto Rico/
mindy. she bangs!
smack is not for only for writers
ers, only journalist’s and commenters/
Here’s an even rarer full frontal photo of Danes sushi and salsa sauza running his team of beachfront skateboard weed delivery girls back in the day.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Definitely too much work for Kelly to handle…
one stop…army corps of engineers…where do they get all those volcanic rocks, or sediment, or slate, composites?
La Crosse is harder than soccer. Surfing is harder than La Crosse. Any kook can run and kick a ball, however, no kook can bomb a 6ft barrel get spat and cut the fuck back.
yeah but how many kooks can run and kick a ball for 90 minutes….and never score?
that’s difficult.
Not as bad as men’s netball , aka AFL
Umpires and hairstyles…farked
got four girl surfers?
The surfer in the first photo is the late Dustin Ray.
Good eye mate! Always remember D-Ray!
Lotta hasbeens and wannabes gettin triggered!
How dare you say that?
My activity is harder than your activity!
You have to have autism to be a pro skateboarder at this point. This is a “amateur team” video.
https://youtu.be/6YshE52Ile…
So tricky!!
I went to waterpolo practice once. I got the idea right away this was not how I wanted to spend my time in the water
you mean getting massive wedgies, punched in the balls and guts whilst simultaneously being drowned is not fun water time??
Chlorine just sucks
At least you get an excuse to let your toenails grow long.