"Jordy Smith hasn't paid heed to anything greater than Pokemon Go over the past two decades, but somehow at this unlikely point of his career, he’s right in the mix."
The only real surf fans in the world packed the beach at finals day in Saquarema, as they do every year.
Pundits, flustered with the prospect of presiding over an actual, real sporting event, found themselves grasping at words and air.
“Wow. Saquarema,” said Kaipo.
But to what, no-one was sure.
His tone was of a man landing from space and reading a road sign, but without wonder, excitement or question.
Strider, apropos of no segue that might indicate a question about oral sex or public masturbation, claimed, with his typical effervescence, that despite the crowds he “hadn’t seen one lewd act”.
(Somewhat ironically, it was he who would spunk furious superlatives all over the sand and crowd all day.)
The moral cleanliness of the beach at Saquarema was mirrored by some clean conditions in the water for finals day, and some entertaining enough surfing.
The four quarter-finals were mostly low-scoring, uneventful match-ups, aside from Yago Dora finding the best wave of the entire event to displace John Florence, and Medina not getting a score he probably should have at the buzzer, losing out to Griffin Colapinto.
Colapinto opened against Medina with six points for a single turn. Nice, unspectacular. But the heat was scrappy. Medina scratched throughout, finding nothing.
Almost at the buzzer, he took off looking for a mid-five.
A opening carve was followed by a consequential floater to flat landing. Surely it was the score? In front of a home crowd and at the death of a heat there seemed no greater certainty.
But Rio has never been kind to the son of Sao Sebastiao. The judges delivered Medina a foul-tasting 4.77 to chew on in the Saquarema sand.
“A lot of good things happening for Gabe,” said Joe Turpel. “His name’s Gabriel Medina, for one.”
On the opposite side, Dora’s defeat of Florence laid further waste to Medina’s immediate top five aspirations.
Yago was comfortable, but his 9.17 was given mostly by virtue of being in the right place at the right moment for a rare, long, clean left.
“That was like Mundaka,” said Turpel, with a level of embellishment that bordered on criminal negligence.
It was not Mundaka. But it was still the best wave that had rolled through in three days.
But that’s how it goes sometimes.
In his post-heat interview, Dora acknowledged that cosmic forces beyond our ken were at work, and he knew it.
“That was the one I was waiting for in El Salvador,” he said, “and it came here.”
It spoke to his rhythm and focus. He’d never left the zone he found at the last event, the state that elevated him skyward and to the final at Punta Roca. He was still on the type of run a man might find himself in once or twice in a lifetime if he pays heed to the cosmos.
Smith held the highest score of an 8.40 for much of his semi final match up with Yago Dora, but Dora had a high seven and a backup and looked comfortable.
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“Too young, too dynamic, too Brazilian,” read my notes.
Then just at the moment of notation Jordy exploded into a righthander, double grab, small rotation, then satisfactory finish. The 5.83 awarded was enough to take the lead, but looked like an oddly low score in context.
Potential controversy was quickly soused by Dora. Almost as soon as Jordy’s score landed he took off on a left, raced towards the closeout on his forehand, pump, pump, bang! He exploded out of the lip with a clean rotation. In the air he’d needed a mid-six. He greased the landing for a 7.97.
Jordy didn’t even get another attempt before Yago slammed the door. His 9.33 for one torqued opening carve, followed by a stylish but relatively forgettable layback on the end section was grossly overscored. But it didn’t really matter.
In the opposite semi, Italo despatched Griffin Colapinto. His clean backside rotation early in the heat spoke to his rhythm. Nine points and no arguments.
Colapinto gave a good account of himself, but his pocket sevens were not enough to turn over Ferreira’s early chip lead.
It was noted during this heat these men had only met previously on two occasions.
Is not there something vastly wrong with the structure of a sports league if two stars have only met twice in the seven years they’ve shared as full-time WCT competitors?
Apart from the very simple premise of pitting talent against talent, this sort of error robs us of potential rivalries and narrative arcs that other sports have.
But at least in Saquarema the Brazilian fans make it seem legitimate.
And so the final, between Italo Ferreira and Yago Dora, delighted an eager, partisan crowd in a high state of arousal.
Yet although the men in the water shared a flag, they had little in common in terms of demeanour or style.
Italo, a coiled explosion of foam and spray, set on a hair trigger. An intense, squat muscularity, like a bull terrier. His emotions swing wildly, like water sloshing in a bucket. You wouldn’t fight him. He spits tears both in fury and joy, and his rawness can’t help but be admired.
For Italo, only success and death are final.
Yago Dora, by contrast, is a languid eel of a surfer. He floats from arc to carve to air as if suspended by invisible thread. Feet narrowed, he glides through life with a calm mind and ungodly talent that forms a warm current only a few are carried by.
Yago’s surfing is agnostic to criticism.
These two men held the four highest scores of the event, a brace of nines apiece. But as is often the way when the two best surfers of a competition meet at a critical point, the realisation of the battle was underwhelming.
It was a mere and perhaps controversial seven-point ride for Ferreira that proved decisive in a one-sided affair, bereft of waves.
Ferreira’s seven, the fatal blow struck early, was mundane, especially by his standards. Back to back forced reverses on a small wave. A wave that will register in no-one’s memory.
We never got to see Italo at his raging best, cannonballing through air and spray.
Nor did we see Dora, raking the sky with wings in stoop.
With twenty minutes gone, Yago had attempted just one wave. 1.13 points.
In the end, the clear emotion of Italo’s victory was enough for a satisfactory conclusion. It’s always gratifying to see a man so close to the edge in service of our entertainment.
John Florence sits as number one and will likely remain there until Trestles.
Griffin sits solidly behind, and can hold his own at both comps remaining.
Italo vaults into the top five, level on points with Jack Robinson. Jack could win in Fiji, but Italo is a monumentally greater adversary at Trestles.
Fewer than a thousand points separate Ethan Ewing, Yago Dora and Jordy Smith in positions five, six and seven, respectively. (1330 points for making it past the opening round, remember.)
Gabriel Medina rounds out the top five threats in eighth, but will need the men above him to falter in Fiji, and/or make at least the semi final.
If this was proper sports reporting, I might be inclined to say there’s everything to play for.
But since this is surfing, suffice to say:
Wow. Surfing.
