Monster John Florence versus Gabriel Medina clash marred by gross World Surf League incompetence

"Can we blame the WSL for this? Should we? On one hand, of course it’s impossible to blame anyone for weather..."

Your years at school are not equivalent to the years that will follow. School years are like dog years, they stretch out, neverending.

Then all of a sudden you leave, and they tick away like the timer on a bomb.

Think of the clarity of your school memories. Everyone remembers school, often in far greater detail than seems logical.

This is something I’m always conscious of at this time of year. Pupils are leaving, and although from my perspective their final days will merge into the final days I’ve seen of others like them for seventeen years now, it’s important to remember this isn’t their viewpoint. I’m part of their present, and my manner, mood or words might form future memories, for better or worse. It’s my responsibility to be present for young people who cannot yet understand how formative their experiences are, but no-one tells you this.

I think of this when senior girls appear smiling at my door in a swirl of glitter and fancy dress, all done up for their final days. And yet I’m still teaching, still in the middle of a class that have dog years of school still to go. But it’s important to stop and acknowledge these moments, even though your first instinct can often be to shoo them away because you’re still in the thick of your own present, the mundane stresses of day-to-day teaching.

And when you do stop, you know it’s right. These moments are what matter. They cut through the daily mundanity. Besides, no-one has timetabled them to turn up at your class. They’re here of their own volition to say goodbye. Of course that’s worth stopping for.

You have no idea what will happen to most of these pupils, not really, but you recognise the hope in the wide fires of their eyes, and you know it’s important to stoke this, to give them some kind of truth. Each needs something different, and these are not the moments for platitudes. But sometimes it’s as simple as saying thank you.

That’s what I wanted to say to the Latvian boy I pass every morning, but will no longer. He would be standing outside his art class, long before any other pupils had arrived at school, much less thought about their period one class. But he would be there, poor Marlens, on an island. Marooned by language and autism, clinging to the raft of the one subject he could understand. I only taught him for one year, a few years ago now, and he would mostly draw in English. No-one spoke to him then or since, and he did not have the faculties to overcome this.

And yet, every morning without fail he would say Good Morning to me, followed quickly by How Are You? And there was always warmth in this simple greeting, and something about his quiet presence each morning at the end of that art corridor always snapped me out of whatever greyness I might happen to be in.

And so the greeting was always reciprocated, as genuine warmth always is. Returned and redelivered, it rolled on through us like a river. And I’ll miss that. And I wanted to say thankyou to him, though never did. Because on the final morning he was already gone. He wasn’t dressed up and partying with the others. To him, school was about turning up early for that art class, and saying hello to teachers. So he had simply disappeared.

But I should have known this. Marlens would never come to my classroom. It was up to me to facilitate this moment, to give both of us a chance to communicate some kind of shared humanity that was worth acknowledging. But the moment was lost, or never seized. And although nothing terrible or tragic has happened, there’s a sense that we are both poorer for it.

This is what I was thinking of as I watched Gabriel Medina lose to John Florence, then Sammy Pupo beat older brother Miguel in the round of 16 at The Margaret River Pro.

No two heats in recent memory had more potential across the whole spectrum of what pro surfing can give us – drama, explosiveness, the evolution of precocious talent, simmering emotional fragility, sheer will to win.

But all of that was just on paper.

What we got for both heats were sub-standard conditions. Some opportunities, yes. But long lulls, and waves dressed up a little by the strong offshore wind, but lacking in any real size or wall.

In both heats, nothing happened relentlessly.

The moments were dulled by the occasion they were given, and this was unbecoming of both the men and their fates.

Can we blame the WSL for this? Should we?

On one hand, of course it’s impossible to blame anyone for weather.

But on the other, if you don’t work to facilitate the very best environment so that these moments might occur in better circumstances, then that’s dereliction of duty.

What might that involve for the WSL? Longer event windows and greater flexibility; a scaled down field; no non-elimination heats; tailoring events round peak swell times, not tourist boards or weekends.

You know, any number of things ardent fans of this shambolic sport have suggested for years now.

We deserve better. They deserve better. John Florence, Gabriel Medina, Miguel and Sammy Pupo. All deserve better.

How many more heats of Medina vs Florence, the two best talents of their generation, might we see?

How many heats of brother vs brother, man on man, with an entire career on the line, has there ever been or will there ever be again?

The poignancy of these moments was completely soused.

For the majority of their heat, both Pupo brothers sat, desolate in the emptiness of the Main Break line-up, left at sea by the WSL.

Just five waves were ridden between them, an insult to the occasion that was no fault of their own.

Medina vs Florence was scrappy. They rode more waves, but neither man was able to unleash the rare power we know they have. Neither was able to just surf, as both had wished for earlier in the event.

Gabriel Medina led for the majority of the heat, then pulled out of a good looking wave near the end to retain priority. He used that priority on the first wave of a set with less than two minutes left. It was the wrong wave. John took the next one, hacked the first section, then pumped round the next for a weak finish and a rare claim.

The claim sold it. The score came in at 6.90, which took the heat by 0.24 points. Medina’s earlier 5.83 was a significantly better wave, but such was the jarring nature of John Florence claiming mediocrity, he was always getting the score.

Consider the conditions Florence has been subjected to that have elicited this claim. He was a circus bear, balancing a ball on his snout whilst the audience laughed, when really he should be tearing their throats out.

The final moments of Sammy Pupo’s defeat of elder brother Miguel were touching, even given the flatness of their heat. Miguel consoled Sammy, the loser grinning ear to ear; the victor unable to choke back tears as they paddled shoreward.

The resulting interview might have been one of the most poignant post-heat interviews ever conducted in professional surfing. Nothing I write here could adequately communicate how many of us felt watching it. Pupo spoke mostly in his native language, addressing his family, but we didn’t need to share his language to empathise with his humanity.

It was a moment untarnishable even by the WSL.

Moments like this will echo long after they’ve passed. And if you have created them, as I do in my job, even inadvertently, or the WSL do by presiding over this sport, then you must do everything in your power to respect them.

For me, that might be as simple as taking a moment to speak to someone, even if I have my own issues at hand.

For the WSL, it’s a little more complex, but the premise and the responsibility to others remains the same.