Chris Cote, BeachGrit's man on the sand at Surf Olympic qualifier in Puerto Rico.

Chris Cote reports from Olympic qualifier as Yago Dora and Gabriel Medina fight for coveted Teahupoo ticket!

By Derek Rielly

8 months ago

"The hottest show on earth!"

Today we find Chris Cote, BeachGrit’s man on the sand at the Olympic qualifier in Puerto Rico, reporting on the penultimate day of competition for his new YouTube show Toxic Positivity.

The most important matter is whether or not Brazil, already hamstrung in their quest for Olympic surfing gold with one surfer injured physically, the other famously terrified of the site of the Games, can squeeze one more surfer into the mix.

The coveted extra ticket to Teahupoo will go to the country that finishes atop the team leaderboard at the conclusion of competition tomorrow. Brazil, whose team at the Qualifier includes the recently retired Filipe Toledo, as well as Gabriel Medina and Yago Dora, leads with France a not-too-distant second.

The question Chris Cote asks, therefore, if Brazil wins will the third male surfer be Yago Dora or will it be Gabriel Medina?

The answer will surprise.

“I’m sure you’ve been watching, I’m sure you’ve been complaining – this is BeachGrit,” says Chris Cote. “So to all you haters out there, why don’t you celebrate what’s been happening down here in Puerto Rico…Finals Day tomorrow will be the greatest day in surf.”

And come tomoz for Chris Cote’s wrap of the Final Day!

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“Symbol of colonial impression” aluminum surf judging tower rises above waters at Teahupo’o

By Chas Smith

8 months ago

Extremely provocative.

One of the more inspiring bits of this still-young 2024 was the valiant effort of Teahupo’o locals attempting to stop construction of a needless aluminum judging tower proposed to replace the perfectly fine, though quaint, wooden one. Long an iconic part of the “End of the Road,” the “Ndhawu leyi ti yeti coolers ti tshamaka eka yona” or “Place Where Yeti Coolers Dwell,” has witnessed decades of famous performances from the likes of Andy Irons, Nathan Hedge and infamous performances from the likes of Filipe Toledo.

Olympic organizers, however, deemed it too rickety with not enough bidets and, thus, proposed a giant new metal structure. Locals fought, marched, protested against and won a re-imagined tower, still metal, but smaller and without bidets.

The compromise, a lightly less provocative symbol of colonial oppression, is now, officially, poking out of the South Pacific.

Barbara Martins Nio, head of the Tahiti site for the Paris Olympics told the press, “Supervision of the construction site by the teams who have used the tower for 20 years, the opening of the information kiosk, and local consultation on ‘environmental and heritage’ issues have favored a return to calm.”

The brightest linguistic minds from around the world have been gathered and are currently working to decipher what she meant.

“We’ve thrown in the towel,” Cindy Otcenasek, president of Vai Ara o Teahupoo, one of the associations opposed to the work, also told the press, adding they had done “everything that was possible within the limits of the law.”

Where do you stand on the whole situation? Team “Big Aluminum” or “Team Burn It To The Reef?”

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Tears as a dozen staff shown door at World Surf League.

Bloodbath at World Surf League as surfing’s brightest creative talents shown door!

By Derek Rielly

8 months ago

Including creative director who created iconic line, “It takes a tour to make a title!”

Five months ago, surf fans woke to the shock news the World Surf League had shuttered its famed Santa Monica headquarters and moved to a shared rental space in El Segundo alongside an animal urgent care facility and a pet cemetery.

The old joint was originally listed for sale for $14.5 mill although that price has since been shaved by two mill. The selling realtor describes the owner as “motivated” and asks buyers to “submit all offers.” The office is also available for lease at “a special introductory rate.”

After an annus horribilis where the World Surf League mysteriously disappeared its CEO Erik Logan and a world champ was again crowned in weak two-foot waves, bad has apparently hit worse with the sacking of some of the League’s pivotal staff including the creative brain behind the iconic line,“It takes a tour to make a title.”

(Yeah, I know, redundant after the switch to a Finals Day. But, still…)

Twelve staffers were iced in the blood-letting, executive assistants, the aforementioned creative director and some creative team members, along with members of the ad op team, as well as the VP of Events.

No one left empty handed, the WSL generously giving each employee two months severance pay.

Observers suggest the WSL is “likely trimming the fat, could be to make the profit and loss look a little better ahead of a potential buyer looking into the books.”

As Chas Smith reported around the time of the World Surf League’s move to El Segundo, the likely buyer will be a Saudi awash with petro-dollars and a yearning to own the sport of kings and queens.

Rumors have been boiling for months, now, that the reclusive billionaire and owner of the World Surf League has been shopping his failed asset. Even though former CEO Erik Logan promised growth and “momentum being real” he got fired after telling a boy to “take his shirt off” and those pronouncements were flat out lies.

It is neither growing nor having momentum, exciting ladder sponsorships being the best it can do, and you must imagine that Ziff is chartering the family jet and punching in coordinates as “middle” and “east.”

Wave tanks in Jeddah.

Final’s Day in Haql.

I’ll put all my agurot that Ziff will, anyhow, sell to, if not Saudi then Bahrain sometime next year, using the Olympics as leverage.

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Sky Brown (pictured) belting.

Chaos at World Surfing Games as darlings Erin Brooks and Sky Brown fail to qualify for Olympics!

By Chas Smith

8 months ago

Reality bites.

Absolute chaos has descended upon the United States protectorate of Puerto Rico, hours ago, as media darlings Erin Brooks and Sky Brown have been bumped out of the International Surfing Association’s World Surfing Games thereby losing Olympic qualification.

I think.

The byzantine rules around punching a ticket to the big Games has stifled even adroitest of minds. This much, however, is currently known. Erin Brooks secured her Canadian citizenship weeks ago in hopes of representing the maple leaf at the Cave of Skulls. Brown, who rides for England, was attempting to become history’s first to compete in surfing and skateboarding. Both lost in one of the 40 repechage rounds thereby derailing momentum.

Maybe.

Canada still has Sanoa Olin alive in the draw who might qualify due to ranking ahead of Brooks. England has Glen “Micro” Hall.

Who actually knows.

Things will certainly be made clear once the dust settles but, for now, let’s choose to be sad for Brooks and Brown.

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Thanks, Kelly.

Question: Is Gen X or Millennials history’s most hamstrung surfing generation?

By Chas Smith

8 months ago

Your consideration required.

David Lee Scales and I connected this morning for our weekly chat and dove straight in to the topic currently dominating the surf conversation. Is surfing easy or is it difficult? Two competing polls were released this week. One, from ESPN, declaring surfing to b decidedly not hard. Somewhere between squash and badminton. One, from Puberty, firmly stated the opposite, sliding surfing very near the “top of tough.”

Kelly Slater, of course, weighed in as he is wont to do. So did I on the increasingly popular YouTube program Chas Smith Hates Surfing.

Slater and my knee jerk early reactions may well stand the test of time but as Scales and I kicked the issue back and forth further nuance flowered.

We, each of us, have a different experience with the “Sport of Kings” depending on when and where we began. I first started sliding around in the middle 1980s but didn’t acquire my first custom handshaped board until the middle 1990s. A razor thin, rockered out potato chip. It was the only acceptable way to go and I thought nothing of it, paddling out in Huntington Beach’s soft slop and attempting radical progression.

Certainly not alone.

Those who came of real surfing age as Gen Xers all, likely, had a portion, if not entirety, of early-ish learning done on craft only fit for the likes of prime Kelly Slater.

A …Lost generation, no doubt.

Which made me wonder. Is Gen X the most hamstrung generation in surfing’s proud history? Leaving the early “carve your own board from a tree” years, the 50s offered long stable things, the 60s same but better, the 70s better still with lots of floaty foam, the 80s wide and fat and chill, the 90s a tiny little wafer, the 00s tiny wafers but a return to more foam everywhere, the 10s a smorgasbord of lengths, widths plus the discovery of “volume” and the 20s with its pure unadulterated user friendliness.

Gen X retarded by what was en vogue.

The only generation that may be more hamstrung is the Millennials who had a wide variety of craft but unformed spines and spongy wills.

Filipe Toledo-style.

So, what do you think? If you had come of surfing age today would you rip? David Lee Scales and I also discussed the importance of eating with flatware that fell on the floor.

Lily-livers need not apply.

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Eat beach grit spam!