Bald-faced.
The champagne on Caitlin Simmers’ World Surf League Championship Tour trophy is now thoroughly dried though the memories of the young Oceanside local ripping through the field still feel fresh. Simmers, 18, came into the 2024 season like a roar after opting to sit 2023 out. An opening victory at Pipeline set the stage for a Lower Trestles ending wherein she hoisted the cup high above her head. The World Surf League quick to anoint her “youngest ever champ.
Except.
She wasn’t.
Longboard champion Joel Tudor took to social media, almost immediately, to set the record straight, penning, “Youngest female world champion in history! 15 yr old Margo Oberg! Winning her first world title in 1968 at domes in Puerto Rico on a Mike Doyle shaped mini model …Margo would go on to win 4 more world titles that spanned from the longboard era into shortboarding making her the 3rd most winning lady champ behind Layne Beachley’s 7 and Steph Gilmore’s 8. Respect to fullness and hope to put some respect on your name and accomplishments! So lame the media today doesn’t do some homework before spitting info that’s not correct.”
The “global home of surfing” remained silent and maybe just an innocent mistake? Maybe not counting the primordial professional surfing stew as “official?”
Well.
Another youngest world champion happened to be working for the World Surf League at the time. One Rachael Tilly won the longboarding tour, then part of the Association of Surfing Professionals which morphed directly into the World Surf League, at 17, after making it her goal to be youngest champ ever when she was 11. Tilly took the issue directly to the League itself and was informed they did not care. That promoting Simmers as youngest ever made for better headlines and no correction or change would be forthcoming.
A wild bit of bald-faced nonsense that goes above and beyond.
This piece of news, which was shared to me by David Lee Scales in our twice weekly chat, took me aback. It’s one thing to be sloppy and silly, quite another to be purposefully deceitful in order to manipulate. His interview with Tilly will be published next week but in the meantime do you have thoughts on the World Surf League’s abject duplicity? Does it take you aback too?
David Lee and I also discussed shamed former CEO Erik Logan being a comedian and the life and death of Westerly Windina on today’s Grit.
Well worth a listen.
Chris Dixon and Frank: please email [email protected] from the address you'd like your BeachGrit login on.
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
I couldn’t frame it any better! BUT at least the US defense complex is giggling with the opportunity to generate outsized revenues for the foreseeable future. While in Germany, VW is about to close 3 plants and France has ramped up manufacturing of white flags…
Meanwhile Tyler’s airway is shrinking in fear of being stoned to death poolside in Abu Dhabi for being the first openly gay World Champion and no one cares… except the guy selling rocks poolside at Kelly’s Desert Oasis….
Yes but land is much more valuable here. That factors into things.
Everybody wins!!
see betty bloop.
bold promises or more wildcards? my union members are pissed…are we live?
Botanic Gardens
“I do…”
And I will cherish…(her forever…)
Stated boldly by two…
At the edge of the meadow walk…
It was sunny then and it is sunny now…
With fog along the coast…
The Oaks are taller…
As are the Redwoods….
She’s three thousand miles away…
At my expense…in Hawaii…
I’m simply sitting on a bench…
Happy? Not really…
Tired? Yes….
Sentimental? Of course, or I wouldn’t even be here…
In love? For sure…
With the right one?
No doubt…
But with love comes loneliness…
A personal thing…
Longing but not waiting…
Anymore…
‘Cause love is not equal…
Between two…It’s been a long time now…
Both pulling our weight…
She in her best way…
Gave into to me…and I gave into her mind…
The distance is the thing…
One can see distance…
The other cannot…
Love is now painful…
The children are not…
They and she are amazing…
And she’s told that a lot…
Me a warrior, once…again!
Will keep doing battle….
That’s how I see it…
Saw it…
And carry a big stick…
But when we were one…it didn’t seem so…
Not…
Most recently…
On a clear day from these lush meadows one can see the Santa Cruz Island…
It’s said that Indians built trails here…
Emboldened or not, by Missionaries…
Dodgers & Angels don’t give a shit…
join the challenge and biuld a trout farm on the expressway…near an in’ n; out!
Breaking:
“The Shape of Things: The Dick Brewer Story”
From what I read on Big Island Now, it’s a new 70 minute documentary on Dick Brewer and his influence on modern surfing.
fireman bill, lifeguard larry…
Mask has a big f mouth. She isn’t the first anything, except she’s the f UGLIEST in the history of professional surfing! There you go Mask, you now have a first!
Everything alright? Have a scotch or a smoke, or something of the sort. It helps. Ice cream, as well.
Yeah just because she looks like she’s been dragged around behind a ute don’t mean she’s ugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
You guys do twice weekly chats now? Painful.
Don’t listen, bro.
Pain free here !
Neither, but you had to read.
Why not give it a try?
dare I say – it sounds all too trumpian ….
Had the exact same thought.
it’s the weave, man ….
Hahahahahar fucken hell. SMH
Next week is gonna be interesting over there if Kamala wins.
I’ll be shocked if Kamala doesn’t win. So should she win, the US will be left with the slightly dumber of the two worthless candidates. She’ll be stealthy in her handlers efforts to destroy the US via expanding government at the expense of a further limiting of capitalism as we know it. Simply put, the global macro ramifications of a Kamala presidency offers up the likelihood of negative economic dynamics via the slow demise of the US consumer.
Fasten your seatbelts kids!
While the dems fasten their gimp masks
I have a visual of the red ball guy in Pulp Fiction!
that’s may west Uma…let’s powder together!
firm hands on the pricks…NDA. KODAK~ceramics? hahahahahahahahah
Either way, no matter who wins – we’ll end up sucking the kumara here in bumfuck, nz by the time wall st has its way.
Garans.
Call me chickenshit but I quit everything a couple of months ago. I’ll give it a month or so before having another look.
Go long on abortions and hormones
TRUE! But at least those wall streeters seem to growing tired of NZ.
get your popcorn!
Got my six pack of IPA, Xanax and oxy for Tues
How’s this year’s harvest?
Good didn’t really get any rain. Had problems in some past years raining right before harvest and getting some bud rot, but all good this time.
Likewise. T’was an ideal Octubre.
Get this. Here’s an example of what is happening right now – tariff’s are driving chinese companies to open warehouses here. as an example – what they would ship here to a US importer at 750 + tariff (tax on US consumer), they just ship over to their own warehouse, adjust the price for the tariff then sell at a price just under USA made goods and they actually make way more profit. They don’t care about price since they get kickbacks for exports from chinese gov’t, so increasing tariff’s does nothing. This allows them to undercut Made In America products and they win two ways – they have now become the middle man AND profits go back to china. trump’s plans will just exacerbate that. Manufacturing jobs were declining under trump pre coivd. Biden’s record is far better even if adjusting for covid – which further illustrates the failure of 45. on top of that in 4 years more debt was added than any previous 8 year term. This sort of stuff is well over the head of maga, since their depth of thought is about as deep as a kiddie pool. pretty crazy that people vote on feelings rather than actual facts.
Rolf Aurness was also younger.
friend v gunsmore v lassie v dominican republic v dad….
WSL era is the only era that matters don’t you know. The rest of it is like BC as opposed to AD.
You mean BK?
Maybe just maybe