Cowboy hat into the five rings.
The ’24 Paris Games is just barely in the rearview, the joys still reverberating across valleys, around mountains and over oceans. Surfing’s second Olympic offering, conducted in French Polynesia, was a mixed bag. An iconic image of Gabriel Medina going viral and a day so big and terrifying that the King of Teahupoo Filipe Toledo became too scared to paddle, on one hand. Small, inconsistent, lully days, on the other hand.
At the end, the other hand seemed to have a firmer grip with such stalwarts as JP Currie claiming that if surfing is to, indeed, have any Olympic future, the only real option is to throw it into a tank where
To wit, an impeccable source has shared that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch has thrown its cowboy hat into the ring to host the surfing shortboard portion of LA ’28.
The plow, some 200 miles up the 5 freeway from Los Angeles in the middle of an industrial farming hellscape, is not the palm tree’d postcard Southern California beach scene
Thoughts?
I have a solid feeling that Huntington Beach will win, at the end, even though brave LGBTQ+ Olympic hopefuls will be very discouraged. Surf City, USA didn’t come by the moniker lightly, flashing teeth and biting Santa Cruz hard in order to win the dub. Lemoore, I’d imagine, would experience a greater grape of wrath.
Back to Olympic surfing, though. If Huntington doesn’t snuff the flame right out, do you think Brisbane ’32 will re-ignite it bigly?
Mick Fanning coming out of retirement to ride for the Southern Cross?
David Lee Scales and I did not discuss Mick Fanning, specifically, during our weekly chat, but did get into a savage Layne Beachley story. You must hear to believe.