"Given the air of spiritual control both men like to project, there is nothing zen about the dynamic between them."
A faded and inconsistent swell marked Finals Day at Cloudbreak. People smiled, as they do in Fiji, and no-one really seemed to care that once again vital heats were contested in sub-par conditions.
Joe Turpel was his usual puppy-ish self, yapping happily at fresh air. Kaipo Guerrero wondered how he might link surfing to 18mm OSB board. Felicity Palmateer was content just to say “Wow” regardless of question or occurrence.
And Jonathan Warren gazed into the middle distance, wondering why everyone kept asking him about weather and when he could get back to playing Pokemon Go in peace.
The day began with close friends Jack Robinson and Yago Dora facing off in a heat that Dora had to win to secure his place in the Final Five.
Dora looked flowy and in control, but Robinson’s patience paid off when he nabbed the best wave of the heat with priority control and surfed it to a mid-six.
There were no more waves. Dora spent the final minutes of the heat sitting, unable to surf. It was a crushing way to lose, as deflating for fans as it was him.
But as we know by now, the best surfers don’t always win. Dora graciously gave an interview with AJ McCord in the aftermath, and did not pull punches.
“Surfing is not about surfing sometimes,” he stated despondently. “All respect to Jack, but I felt I was surfing better than him this whole event.”
He wasn’t wrong.
And so it transpires that Yago Dora, along with Gabriel Medina, will not appear at Trestles. For my money these men are clearly among the best five surfers in the world, and certainly the most well rounded. They have skills that could make Trestles electric, and without them it will lack spark.
Rio Waida defeated Imaikalaini deVault in the next quarter, then Ewing bested Barron Mamiya in the next.
Waida’s joyful and light-footed approach not only suited the conditions on offer at Cloudbreak, but richly deserved success. You sense the only thing holding him back from consistent finals appearances is a few kg.
Ewing’s much vaunted technique was able to eke power from weak sections in both his quarter final and his semi loss to Waida.
“Extreme biomechanics,” said Kaipo. “Extreme fundamentals.”
“If you’re on the best wave out there today, and you surf it quite well, you’re going to win,” said Flick.
Ewing seemed in tight control of the semi-final, holding a nine and a low six, but Waida conjured a mid-seven from an unlikely wave under Ewing’s priority near the end. It was enough to turn it, and Ewing had done nothing wrong.
But it was the opposing semi that held greater interest, and the burgeoning rivalry between Griffin Colapinto and Jack Robinson, warring baby gurus of the WCT.
It’s a curious tussle, given the air of spiritual control and mastery of mind that both men like to project, but perhaps this is the problem. Each has styled himself in this way, and resents the other for it.
If I had to guess, I’d say that both are so insecure about the cubic centimetres between their ears and their alleged control of it, that they are terrified the other is for real, and fear being outed as charlatans.
Whatever the case, there is nothing zen about the dynamic between them.
The first glimpse of this rivalry had been apparent on the previous day during a post-heat interaction caught by cameras. Ostensibly, they were saying well done, but each was silently whispering “I hate you”. It was like two geeks at a school disco having a dance off to the Ghostbusters theme tune.
We discovered that the rivalry had been in part instigated by Colapinto’s victory over Robinson at Sunset Beach.
In a rare moment of transparency, Griffin revealed that he and Jack were just a little different in manner. Jack was playing games, he said. Trying to get in his head. He was open and honest, liked to look a man in the eye. Jack, by contrast, avoided eye contact.
Colapinto claimed that at Sunset Robinson kept paddling close to him and standing up on his board as an intimidation tactic. In response, he’d mimicked these actions, and Jack didn’t like that.
Prior to their match-up today Griffin went in for a hug. It was very AI vs Slater. But Robinson did not engage. He grabbed a fistful of Colapinto’s rashie and shoved him past, ratty eyes cold and unflinching.
By contrast, Griffin’s were wide and smiling as he passed in front of the camera. He was winning the game and he knew it.
And so it was in the water. Colapinto was cool and in control of the heat from the off. Robinson stayed calm, holding priority for a long time in his usual manner, hoping the ocean would deliver as it so often does.
But the crux of the heat was a tactical masterstroke by Griffin after he paddled far up the reef, stroked into a sub-standard wave and forced Jack to take off and lose priority with six minutes remaining. On another day, against another opponent, Robinson might have let him go. It’s clear that Colapinto is in his head.
The eventual final between Rio Waida and Colapinto seemed like a fait accompli in favour of the higher ranked and vastly more experienced surfer, and it more or less was. Waida did his best, but Griff was in control. And in all honesty, the waves were poor.
And of course, I can’t not mention Erin Brooks. Divine intervention notwithstanding, already her turns look faster and more critical than just about any female surfer I can think of. Surely a world champ in waiting, and a salivating prospect for the future of the women’s tour and the glut of young talent that’s here and ready.
Cheerio Tyler Wright et al.
But the day would not have been complete, no contest would be complete, nay, no five minutes of any broadcast of surfing would ever be complete without Kelly Slater.
Slater was omnipresent again. Inexplicably usurping Stace Galbraith as coach and caddy for Erin Brooks, there he was, bald head front and centre.
Is this the next iteration of Kelly staying in the limelight, refusing to go quietly? Latching onto a seventeen-year-old phenom who seems destined to control the professional surfing narrative for a long time would seem like a surefire way to remain relevant.
In an interview as he sat on Brooks’ miniscule back-up board in the channel, he claimed he’d been “talking to her quite a lot” throughout this year.
Surprising, then, that when Brooks was asked how she felt about Kelly caddying for her, coaching her, adopting her, she replied “I actually didn’t even know Kelly was there.”
Joe Turpel, undaunted, persisted in calling him Coach Kelly.
This unsolicited in loco parentis contains deep irony, of course, absent as Slater was from the banality and obscurity of changing nappies for his infant son.
I’m just staggered he didn’t announce the name of his son in the moments after Erin won. And truly, I can’t wait to see what he has in store for Brooks’ first world title.
And did you catch the “Grom to Goat” package? The cultish highlight reel where surfing’s luminaries gushed over a montage of Kelly’s career that genuinely made me wonder if he’d passed away during a Bonsoy Brew Break?
Cringe doesn’t do it justice.
Anyway, we’ll see him at Trestles, somehow.
And that’s all we have left of this season.
John’s number one, then Griff, Jack, Ethan and Italo. In the end there were no shake-ups whatsoever.
I confess to not being hugely inspired, but that might just be because the more Joe and Kaipo etc tell us how exciting it’s going to be, the less I believe it.
But I do hope Jonathon Warren will be there. I hear you get super rare Pokemon on the cobblestones.
