Griffin Colapinto wins MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal 2024
Winner Griffin Colapinto and lil bro Croz after sensational victory.

Griffin Colapinto bashes Ethan Ewing in MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal final signaling a glorious return of American surfing dominance!

USA! USA! USA!

Surfing’s celestial sky has radically changed, this year, with old stars fading away and new ones being birthed. The two brightest, possibly, America’s Griffin Colapinto and Australia’s Ethan Ewing. Brazilian storm clouds not longer obscuring the horizon.

Both reached the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal final, paddling out in glassy headish high surf while doctors, at home, wiped tears from their eyes, trying to focus on the present moment as Colapinto and Tim Ferriss would want. France’s Johanne Defay, you see, had just denigrated their work with a stunning win over the surfing medical miracle Tyler Wright.

A heavy burden.

Colapinto got off to a quick start after baking himself in an infrared sauna, posting two respectable scores before Ewing found rhythm.

I actually have one that looks almost identical in my garage at home though rarely use it. Watching Colapinto’s early dominance, certainly makes me rethink my program. Could I, too, dominate with a little extra heating?

Time will tell.

The San Clementine looked like he was running away with the show until midway through when Ewing employed his luscious bottom and smashed out the highest score yet.

Americans dreaming of a return to surfing dominance holding breaths.

Doctors, in America but also world wide, beginning to cry again about Wright, unable to dam the emotion. What went wrong? Should they have added 9 mm of extra airway instead of just 7 mm?

With less than ten minutes to go in the final, Colapinto made a rare mental error. Ewing did not initially capitalize, though, and fell on a wave that had all the scoring potential needed. Colapinto rubbed his very handsome buttocks right in it by snagging a sneaky barrel right before the Bonsoy Brew Break.

Surf fans forced to wait to see if he bettered his score line.

Doctors texting each other, wondering if they should make a support group wherein they could freely discuss both failures and next steps as it relates to Wright.

When live action returned, Colapinto had vaulted to a healthy lead thanks to a 8.27 score then chasing it with a fine backside tube that was missed because of the aforementioned BBB.

The score a 9.97 though not a 10.00 because the mid-sized Yeti cooler was already packed and ready to be sent to Bells Beach.

All hope lost for Ewing who purchased a plot in comboland.

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Johnanne Defay and baby at MEO Rip Curl Portugal Pro 2024
Winner Johanne Defay hoists aloft baby from the crowd during victory march.

France’s Johanne Defay slaps medical establishment across face with stunning win over Tyler Wright at MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal!

Viva la France!

Waves finally returned to Portugal and the World Surf League was able to finish the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal in fun head high surf. A healthy crowd packed the brown-ish sand in order to cheer for heroes and heroines as they sought glory, points and the chance to bring a mid-sized Yeti cooler home.

On the women’s side, France’s Johanne Defay came up against Australia’s Tyler Wright. Doctors around the world tuned in in order to see Wright, a paddling medical miracle, continue to defy all odds and surf, at a very high level, even though she grew up under the unwavering gaze of a father who made her go into the ocean, debilitating post viral syndrome and perpetual suffocation.

The last bit just revealed with Wright declaring, “I’ve had a fair few doctors and specialists tell me they don’t know how I do what I do. I found out that most of the time I’m under-oxygenated and semi-suffocating. My airways are too small basically, and over the off-season I had it expanded. Honestly it’s been life-changing, it’s the sanest I’ve ever felt. It’s really successful, it’s changing my life, but it’s also a process and that’s only step one and a half of a multi-step process.”

The aforementioned doctors had given her more air by shoving a “maxillary palatal expander [a device that widens the mouth] in. Essentially I’ve got seven screws in my head, between nine and 17 millimetres [in length] and in the off-season I expanded it. Essentially it popped the bone and I got seven millimetres [added airway space] through that.”

It apparently did not work with Defay knocking Wright around in the finals.

Doctors returning to the drawing board, depressed.

Though joy in France. Defay ruling the day.

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Ferriss trying while Hamilton (insert) instructs.
Ferriss trying while Hamilton (insert) instructs.

Life VAL Tim Ferriss taps Laird Hamilton for surf experience!

"You think you have it? Paddle again."

Tim Ferriss is a very modern phenomenon. The multi-hyphenate life hacker is always looking for shortcuts, always seeking how to “optimize” and “podcast” and “teach” the rest of us how to shortcut our way to fulfillment. It was only a matter of time, then, that the Princeton graduate turned to our surfing in order to life and hack.

In his new YouTube program The Tim Ferriss Experiment, self-described as “MythBusters meets Jason Bourne,” the lantern head’d Ferriss looks to none other than Laird Hamilton in order to play water sliding. “Sometimes in order to learn fast,” he narrates over a surf clip, “you have to slow way down.”

Hamilton, always perfect looking, is then introduced dropping wisdom as if it were crumbs from a fresh blueberry muffin. “The only thing there is, is now,” he definitively states. Ferriss’ voice returns, declaring, “one bad ass legend…” over a clip of Hamilton looking angry and barking, “You think you have it? Paddle again.” And then I stopped watching, wanting to leave various surprises etc. for you.

In general, though, how do you feel about surfing as metaphor for life? The waves keep coming, you just need to ride them, etc.? I’ll go first. I think it is lazy and shit and wish Tim Ferriss would have stuck with four hour quinoa bowls.

Your turn.

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Comment live, Finals Day, MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal 2024, “Who can dethrone king of the skies Gabriel Medina?”

Pour yourself a pint of booze, unshackle fingers etc.

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Stephanie Gilmore Rip Curl deal
Stephanie Gilmore effectively quits tour, walks into wild deal with Rip Curl amid wreckage of trans fallout. | Photo: Trent Mitchell/Rip Curl

Rip Curl signs Stephanie Gilmore, launches massive PR counteroffensive amid wreckage of trans misstep

"It’s an iconic deal. It’s historic," says Gilmore of an eight-year contract worth between six and ten million.

Two months after Rip Curl exploded into Bud Light-esque flames after its celebration of T-Girl Sasha Jane Lowerson, the company has launched a counteroffensive the likes not seen since Operation Uranus in World War II.

You’ll remember the calls to boycott Rip Curl after high-profile American swimmer Riley Gaines slammed Rip Curl as “crazzzyyyy” and skater Taylor Silverman wrote, “According to Rip Curl this man is a ‘waterwoman’…reality is he’s just a mentally ill man making a complete mockery of actual women and “The “community” is so supportive that Rip Curl had to disable the comments!”

Shortly after splitting with shark-attack survivor Bethany Hamilton reportedly because of her anti-trans-gals-in-sports views, Rip Curl had joined two other Australian swimsuit brands in a pivot to the queer market.

In a moving post that was later deleted,

Rip Curl described Sasha Jane Lowerson as a “West Australian waterwoman who loves the freedom found in surfing, disconnecting from the mainstream, and the feeling of dancing on constantly changing waves… It’s a state of mind, always being ready to try something new, curious to seek out knowledge and learn the rules – and break them.⁠”

Calls to boycott quickly followed and the question at the time was, how much was Rip Curl owner Kathmandu willing to lose in sales to push the trans agenda?

Well, that question has now been answered after Rip Curl signed an eight-year deal in the “multi-millions” with the recently semi-retired Stephanie Gilmore although how many multis is unspecified.

Three hundred gees a year would put Gilmore’s deal in the multi-millions, although Rip Curl did say “it is one of the biggest deals in Australian sport to date”.

I’d guess eight hundred gees a year, maybe a little more.

The eight-time champ will be forty-four when the cheques stop.

“To be able to partner with Rip Curl on a deal that not only for myself, but for women in sport is something that’s truly groundbreaking, just it feels right,” said Stephanie Gilmore.

“You can align yourself with brands for certain things but unless it really feels authentic and true to who you are, then the audience can feel that. It feels right to me, and I’m super happy with that.

“It’s an iconic deal. It’s historic. And there’s something about that, that makes me feel proud to know that I’m allowing this space to open up for the women of the next generations – and also for the companies that we’re working alongside to realise that this is a fantastic way to celebrate female athletes and it can be very healthy and successful for both of us.”

The zenith for Stephanie Gilmore’s career came in 2022 when she dominated Finals Day, starting in fifth place, mowing through all-comers before beating Carissa Moore in the winner-take-all surf-off.

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