Johnny Konings and his girl Charlotte.
Johnny Konings and his girl Charlotte. One day at a time, little victories, etc.

Gold Coast surfer speared into D-Bah sandbank reveals horror prognosis

"The worst-case scenario is it's unlikely he’ll walk again”

Hang onto the small things in life, kids, ‘cause life sure can spin on a dime.

Six days ago, Johnny Konings, a thirty-one-year-old New Zealand-born surfer who’d shifted his life to the Gold Coast to follow the perfect-waves-in-warm-water dream and was living with his cute Pilates teacher girl, belted his spine in a wipeout at D-Bah and now…now?…he’s in the spinal ward of a Brisbane hospital.

Johnny Konings life-changing wipeout.
Johnny Konings and the run of the mill wipeout on a three-foot wave that changed his life.

“I just didn’t make the drop on the take-off and got tumbled around, covered up, because I knew I was about to take a beating,” says Johnny. “And then, yeah, just impact straight onto the sand and came to the surface and knew straight away.”

 

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Johnny was airlifted to Princess Alexandra hozzy in Brisbane, where he remains, in a bed and in a chair.

“The worst-case scenario is that he may, it’s unlikely that he will walk again,” says girlfriend Charlotte. “I think that obviously they have to give us the worst-case scenario.”

The timeline on the pair’s Instagram pages is harrowing as all hell. Perfect life, two kids setting sail on a dreamy life together and, one slightly mistimed takeoff, and he’s stuck in a damn chair.

 

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Wanna help ’em out? The fundraiser has been pretty underwhelming so far if you want to chip in a buck or two.Twenty-two gees out of a hundred k goal.

“When life gives you lemons,” says Charlotte, “you throw in some lime, salt, a shit ton of tequila and make a bloody strong margarita.”

 

 

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Brady (left) with brothers Medina and Slater (right). Isabella Settanni in between.
Brady (left) with brothers Medina and Slater (right). Isabella Settanni in between.

Kelly Slater eskimo brother Tom Brady adds surf champ Gabriel Medina to fraternity as he begins dating Isabella Settanni

"Isabella Settanni appears to be an avid surfer and snowboarder..."

So, and let’s just make this quick. Kelly Slater, the world’s greatest ever surfer, once dated an up and coming Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen who, afterward, married super quarterback Tom Brady. Those two had a long and seemingly happy marriage until Tom, like Kelly, refused to hang it up and kept on keeping on (allegedly).

Surf fans, feverish with fairytale, dreamed of a possible Slater x Búndchen reunion though, alas, she fell into love with her Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor who just so happened to be Brazilian.

In a wild twist, however, Brady is making night music with other Brazilian supermodel Isabella Settanni and does that name sound familiar?

Let us turn to Whiskey Riff for clarity:

Settanni appears to be an avid surfer and snowboarder, and is reportedly the daughter of Junior and Carla Settanni, who own and operate a successful food distribution business. She’s also been linked to a few other athletes, most notably Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina and pro skateboarder Felipe Foguinho.

Et voila.

The Dark Knight’s ex.

But how wowza is the eskimo fraternity of Brady x Medina x Slater?

The term “eskimo brother,” of course, referring to different men who have bought the same woman flowers and chocolates as is the custom in Inuit Nunangat.

Brady Medina Slater a fine name for a baby boy, coincidentally.

Light candles, please.

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Keala Kennelly (pictured) living her fullest life in Greece. Photo: Instagram
Keala Kennelly (pictured) living her fullest life in Greece. Photo: Instagram

Breaking: World Surf League solely to blame for “cruel and sloppy” smear of big wave icon Keala Kennelly

Surf media cleared of all wrongdoing.

I’ll be quite frank. When I discovered, this morning, that the legendary big wave maven Keala Kennelly had been done wrong by the surfing industry, and mostly media, I was both sad and taken aback. The multi-hyphenate 45-year-old has been routinely celebrated at BeachGrit here, here, here, here, etc. and I only assumed she was treasured as much elsewhere.

Her specific bone, entirely justified in my opinion, was that she had been the first ever to score a perfect 10 at Teahupo’o in 2001 though her milestone was brushed under the carpet, Tati Weston-Webb’s most recent, less than a month ago, being celebrated as unique.

“I’m getting very tired of the media diminishing the surfing legacies of my generation (and other past generations) I recently had a history making accomplishment of mine completely erased and bestowed on someone else then spread all over the internet,” Kennelly penned to Instagram

Alas, in breaking news, the surfing media has been cleared of all wrong doing in forget-gate, all blame falling onto the World Surf League itself.

Per the presser released just after the Tahiti Pro wrapped:

Despite losing to eventual event winner Fierro, Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) made history today with the first Perfect 10 ever from a woman at the Tahiti Pro. Weston-Webb dug deep to paddle over the ledge and into a huge set wave, making it to the bottom and almost catching her rail in the critical part of the wave only to recover and put herself deep in the barrel, behind the heavy Teahupo’o curtain. Weston-Webb then navigated the foam ball and the spit to fly out of the barrel for the Perfect score. Weston-Webb’s amazing surfing continues to push surfing’s progression even more in today’s pumping conditions.

Cruel and sloppy, especially coming from the “Global Home of Surfing.”

But might it have been on purpose?

Surf fans certainly remember, seven months ago, when Kennelly took a sledgehammer to the World Surf League, accusing it of “fraud, deception and stinginess,” declaring, “The WSL calls themselves a ‘sports league.’ They are a medium company and what does a media company need? Attention.”

Ouch though true. The League, itself, responds to criticism with old-school Stalinism, simply erasing those who counter whichever narrative is the one being pushed.

Do you recall Bethany Hamilton?

Neither does anyone behind the Wall of Positive Noise as she was disappeared after challenging the WSL’s stance on trans athletes. Brave surfers wanting to honor the inspirational shark attack survivor by wearing her name told “That person doesn’t exist.”

Keala Kennelly, it appears, victim number two.

Who’s next?

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Keala Kennelly (pictured) setting the record straight.
Keala Kennelly (pictured) setting the record straight.

Big wave legend Keala Kennelly lashes surf media for not putting respect on her name

"I recently had a history making accomplishment of mine completely erased and bestowed on someone else..."

The completely epic ’24 running of the Tahiti Pro is now but a speck in the rearview mirror though still reverberating. Phenomenal performances by Gabriel Medina, John John Florence, Ramzi Boukhaim and Rio Waida, of course, but the show stoppers were Tatiana Weston-Webb, with her perfect 10, and Vahine Fierro who became a legitimate star on finals day.

But let us not forget Keala Kennelly. The big wave legend, 45, is a multi-hyphenate actor, world champion, DJ, LGBTQ+ icon is wildly respected in the surf world and reminded the stingy surf media as to such in a stirring post.

While praising the women’s Teahupo’o performance, Kennelly gently corrected the record, saying:

I’ve seen all over the internet that Tati’s was the first 10. I got the first 10 back in 2001. I had to scour the internet to find one little article about it in a local Honolulu paper. When we got the contest at Chopes everyone was rooting for the women to fail. The male surfers, the entire surfing industry. When we didn’t and we went out and shattered everyone’s expectations they just, didn’t want to acknowledge it and just brushed it under the rug. Now, 15 years later after the women have been excluded…

The message was, unfortunately, curtailed but point not lost and further filled out with the caption, reading:

I’m getting very tired of the media diminishing the surfing legacies of my generation (and other past generations) I recently had a history making accomplishment of mine completely erased and bestowed on someone else then spread all over the internet. From now on my first time in history accomplishment will be associated with someone else. I don’t completely blame the media for spreading so much misinformation because of the systemic suppression of the groundbreaking first time in history things women surfers were doing at places like Teahupoo and Tahiti, it’s almost impossible to find the accurate stories on the internet. In this video I get into that, set the record straight on some things and give credit to the women who never got proper credit for their historic accomplishments and some historical facts for the media like-

The entire surfing industry, but mostly media, should be well and truly ashamed about the rug brushing, as it were, but let it be stated right here that Keala Kennelly got the first women’s ten, ever, at Teahupo’o in 2001.

Huzzah!

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Tamayo Perry, RiP
The late, great Tamayo Perry at Teaupoo.

“Hard-charging, God-fearing Pipe specialist” Tamayo Perry killed by shark

RIP.

The Hawaiian surfer turned city lifeguard Tamayo Perry, described in 2005 as Pipeline’s most dominant surfer, has reportedly been killed by a shark, likely a Tiger, near Goat Island in Kahuku.

First responders were called after a body was found with bite wounds near the notoriously sharky surf sport.

Perry, who was forty-nine, was a staple of magazines an films around the turn of the century, was always a stand-out at Pipe, obvs, and was famous for taking off on any damn thing that blackened the horizon at Teahupoo, a fifth at the Billabong Pro evidence, as if it was necessary, of his bona fides there.

 

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From Warshaw’s EOS,

Perry was born (1975) and raised on the East Side of Oahu, began surfing at age 12, and soon became best friends with future pop crooner Jack Johnson, who lived in a beachfront house at Pipeline.

Perry was known in his late teenage years as the quiet up-and-coming local boy who had to borrow surfboards because he had no sponsors.

By 1997, the wiry goofyfooter had gone a long way to developing a tuberiding style combining traits from Gerry Lopez and Tom Carroll, his two favorite old-school Pipeline surfers. He’d meanwhile become a devout born-again Christian: Asked by a surf magazine to name the last two books he’d read, Perry listed the Bible and The End: 50 Reasons Why Jesus Christ Could Return Before the Year 2000.

Perry has competed selectively, and with modest success, finishing fourth in the 2000 Pipeline Masters Trials and fifth in the Billabong Pro Trials at Teahupoo. Nonetheless, by 2005 he was generally regarded as Pipeline’s single most dominate surfer.

It’s the second shark attack on Oahu this month.

Two weeks ago, a woman was rushed to hospital with serious injuries after being attacked near Haleiwa on the North Shore.

 

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