Hubba hubba.

Almost one month ago, Hawaiian surf star Koa Rothman stunned surf watchers by dropping longtime sponsor for Quiksilver for bodybuilding brand Darc Sport Hawaii. The son of Fast Eddie took to Instagram to explain, “They’ve got the sickest logo, the sickest team, I met with them in California, it’s a super cool vibe not corporate at all. And not just me, they picked up the gnarliest guy ever in surfing, Bruce Irons, and the gnarliest guy in the MMA, Max Holloway. That’s their Hawaiian team, me, Bruce and Max. They started back in 2015. They started with bodybuilders, then moved into fitness influencers, and now they’re breaking into surfing and MMA. Their background is definitely weightlifting and fitness, which is really cool. They’re a brand that wants the athletes involved in what they’re doing.”

Things got much heavier, hours ago, when Santa Cruz hunk Peter Mel melted the internet with an unfairly handsome photo shoot declaring he, too, is on the team.

The big wave star simply stated, “It’s not WHO wears it… But WHY. NFGU.”

#NFGU is the tagline for Darc Sport which stands for “Never Fucking Give Up.”

But the emergence of a new brand on the scene should well excite what with Hurley pivoting to beard oils and Billabong focusing on wide legged jeans for the Costco customer. It feels, almost, like the dawn of a whole new surf industrial era.

Darc Sports has a robust offering crossing surfwear staples such as hoodies, boardshorts, t-shirts, hats etc. Mel modeled a sweatshirt in his spread.

Congratulations came from all corners, onto Mel’s feed, including Dane Gudauskus, Bianca Valenti and Koa Rothman himself.

Bright days ahead.

“It’s a wave of consequence, so I’m not going to say that I’m not scared, I am.”

The surf world held its collective breath, two weeks ago, when Australia’s Tyler Wright withdrew from the Brazil leg of the World Surf League’s Championship Tour citing an “unspecified injury.” The two-time world champion, currently tenth in the world, has overcome almost too many obstacles to count on her professional surf journey including perpetual suffocation, African flu which led to post-viral syndrome, a father who forced her to surf and carrying the burden of being the only openly gay surfer at the highest levels of competition to name but a very few.

Her missing the Vivo Rio Pro serious in and of itself made much more extreme in light of the upcoming Olympic Games which will be contested, for surfers, in Tahiti.

Surfing Australia put a brave face on the situation, releasing a statement reading, “Tyler has been advised by her doctors and specialists that she needs some treatment and would prefer her sitting out Brazil. Tyler will be 100% ready for the Olympics.”

Though in a sign of possible doubt, Tyler Wright maybe being 98% ready for the Olympics, the team readied Sally Fitzgibbons as replacement.

Well, hours ago, Wright revealed the horror diagnosis that kept her out of Brazil.

Balance issues.

No further details were given, whether it is benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, vestibular neuritis, Meniere’s disease or Ramsay Hunt syndrome, for example, but brave Wright seems to be sallying forth telling the Guardian that it was a “hard call” to make heading to Teahupo’o but that she’s excited and ready.

“It’s a wave of consequence, so I’m not going to say that I’m not scared, I am,” she declared. “I’ve done a lot in the last couple of years to sit with that, but at the same time I don’t think it’s that complicated either; you either go or you don’t, and you make that decision in the moment.”

Wright is not a favorite, by the numbers, but her hero’s journey will, no doubt, inspire and isn’t that what the Olympics is really about?

Very exciting.

I will, of course, be covering all the action from ground zero nearly 10,000 miles away in Paris and will be certain to keep abreast of any and all developments as opening day draws near.

Médicalement miraculeux.

"So, I’m almost feeling like everything that’s happened to me is leading up to this moment in the Olympics."

The Olympics is now but 16 days away and, as you know, I am here in Paris to cover them. The surfing portion, of course, will take place in French Polynesia, some 10,000 miles away, but I only like poisson cru every so often and, thus, opted for the City of Light instead. I will be able to watch them on television just as well as I could in Papeete and, also, will stay just as blocked on Filipe Toledo’s social media channels.

Yes, the bravest coward must be trembling with greater and greater frequency each hour that passes but he is likely becoming joined by others. Oh, he alone is quaking about the the thought of paddling those velvet waters. The others, shaking with the revelation that United States etoile Griffin Colapinto may be close to reaching “flow state.”

In a just-published Fox interview, the San Clementine declared, “I’m feeling really good. I feel that this year, the past few years, every year there’s been a lot of challenges that’s come at me, and I feel I’ve done my absolute best to get through them. In the moment, they were really hard. Sometimes, I get out there, and it’s like, boom, flow state right away. Or I’ll be challenged with a lot of different thoughts coming at me. It’s basically just being able to be aware of that, and use it to become more present.”

As surfers on the World Surf League’s championship tour know, a flow stated Colapinto is virtually unbeatable. The fact that he was just at Head Place and did poorly, extra scary. The 25-year-old explained, “Last time I was in Tahiti, I ended up losing to the wild card in round 2, which is as early as you can lose in the event. I lost to the wild card, and I was so bummed because I put in so much preparation, so much hard work for that wave, and I have been for a long time. It just didn’t come to fruition. In the past, those things haven’t really gone my way, but I feel like I’ve learned so much every time things haven’t gone my way. So, I’m almost feeling like everything that’s happened to me is leading up to this moment in the Olympics.”

Does a Colapinto win seem fated?

I shall go have a cold glass of Sancerre and ponder.

Join me?