Gamblers win big at Rip Curl Pro Portugal as wildcards dominate and Kelly Slater says, “I may never surf here again!”

Had you placed a mere tenner on Cole Housmand, Jacob Wilcox, Joan Duru, Seth Moniz and Ramzi Boukhiam, you would have profited nearly 24k.

A bold man might have made a lot of money on the opening round of the Rip Curl Portugal Pro.

Some examples:

Had you placed a mere tenner on Cole Housmand, Jacob Wilcox, Joan Duru, Seth Moniz and Ramzi Boukhiam, you would have profited nearly 24k.

Add in Sammy Pupo, Caio Ibelli and Federico Morais and you would have won just short of two million.

There are almost endless combinations of these that would have made you rich by most people’s standards.

Doesn’t seem so hard, does it?

I am, eternally, that bold yet foolish man. At daybreak I placed a bet. A Euro (and Euro-adjacent) triumvirate of Joan Duru, Ramzi Boukhaim and Federico Morais. Odds of 165/1 for all three to win. Forty-five pounds sterling on, to return just short of seven and a half grand. Not to be sniffed at for the average man.

Unfortunately, reader, I shat it.

I could not believe in Federico Morais, not against Yago Dora, not at his home-ish break where he’s so often underwhelmed.

And so I cashed out. A profit, yes. But a drop in a vast ocean of losses. For once, a cautious move among a lifetime of bold losses.

That’s what I get, I suppose. You can’t change your strategy or your spots.

I doubt anyone was prophetic or lucky enough to make these choices at the Rip Curl Pro Portugal. Why on earth would you pick Jacob Wilcox and Sammy Pupo over Florence and Medina, for example?

But that’s how it played out, and Portugal’s detractors and sceptics will suggest it’s the fault of the location, not the surfers. But that wouldn’t exactly be true.

In truth, the waves were unspectacular but sufficient at Supertubos today. Shoulder to head high, rights and lefts. No barrels to justify the name, but definitely a few sections to whack.

John Florence wasn’t able to find one. Medina did, but couldn’t make anything stick.

Scoring was heavily biased towards the biggest waves.

Where in the stretched out line-up these waves might appear was largely a mystery. Judges were looking for turns to be linked rather than single big manoeuvres or airs. Though if the airs were big enough, the scores would have been forthcoming, as evidenced by Jack Robinson’s 8.83, the single highest score of the day for an alley-oop with pleasing amplitude and quite lovely velocity.

 

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Robinson was filmed on the beach pre-heat, eyes closed, engaged in breath work. Activating, as Joe Turpel might say. It seemed to work, and he brought a rare verve to his heat.

It was the second and second-best example of visualisation of the day. The first belonged to Griffin Colapinto, seen cross-legged and wearing the sort of black eye-mask favoured by 50-something divorcees on aeroplanes.

Bless him, he was in a wee world of his own.

Not that it did him any good. All he managed to manifest was a drop in on Callum Robson, which led to an interference penalty and cost him the heat. No arguments. A clear misjudgement of priority.

 

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The second highest score of the day belonged to Sammy Pupo. He began his heat with a similar alley-oop to Robinson, but only garnered 6.67 from the panel, who were apparently keeping their powder dry for Medina.

It took two vertical backhand turns on a left for Pupo to score his 8.33. Rewatching it now, it was certainly a good wave in the context of the day, but it’s hard to justify why it was a point or more better than many others.

Medina, by contrast, fired blanks throughout, leaving the judges wanting.

The answer to the lacklustre performances of Medina and some other favourites is perhaps fatigue. If not physical, then surely mental.

Many of them had flown in from Puerto Rico, where they had been competing in the ISA World Surfing Games, just the night before. Ramzi Boukaim said he had surfed 13-14 heats in Puerto Rico. Testament once again to the incomprehensibly poor format cooked up by the ISA.

Tom Curren joined the booth. There was a lot of umming and aahing. He tried, bless him. But he’s one of the surf world’s luminaries who we should admire always on waves but never mics.

To be fair, I’m sure he feels the same. But if he still wants those Rip Curl cheques, he’s obliged to be somewhat visible. And it’s a charmed life for sure, still being paid to surf in your sixties.

And what of Kelly Slater?

Absent once again, owing to an alleged hip injury. In one way it feels wrong to doubt the man, but you can’t help but suspect a long trip to Europe for a poor forecast to surf a beachbreak makes the old hip niggle a bit.

What is his plan, I wonder? I still don’t see a happy exit for him. I’m not even sure there’s a doggy door.

Some big names fill the elimination heats at the Rip Curl Pro Portugal when we return: Griffin Colapinto, Gabriel Medina, Kanoa Igarashi and Ryan Callinan.

Competition at the Rip Curl Pro Portugal will likely resume in a few days once the westerly gales have blown through. And it could be a mad dash to the end once again. Let’s hope we get some classic Supertubos to silence the Euro sceptics.

Regardless, it’s always worth a punt.