From surfing’s Mecca the tour moves to surfing’s apocalyptic nightmare. Slave pools and oily obscenity. The WSL is nothing if not dystopian paradox.
The fan’s perspective of the WSL can be druggy. First comes the promise. The simmering elation of what might be. Then comes the reality. Brief euphorias you can’t quite sustain, questioning of choice and purpose. And then the inevitable comedown.
All is the same, just a little greyer and more hollow than before.
That’s how it felt at the start. It just wasn’t quite yesterday. The waves were considerably smaller and less threatening. It was “the kind of size that anyone at home could picture themselves in,” said Ross Williams.
“Friendly North Shore,” Kaipo added.
That’s how the day began, but certainly not how it ended.
Momentum was built and carried on the shoulders of Barron Mamiya, right next to the flag of Hawaii. Euphoria came and lingered awhile.
He was simply rolling. He’d been rolling since yesterday, notching perfect rides in front of partisan crowds. And today, he just kept on going.
It was the kind of performance in sport that’s simply undeniable. Lebron in Game 7. Woods at the Masters. Maradona, Mexico ‘86.
Call it a flow state, call in being in the zone, call it whatever you like. Mamiya was never going to lose.
In a subjectively judged sport, seeing an athlete in this state can induce vicarious pleasure. There is a group flow that exists. We root for the man on form. Fans and judges alike.
And in choosing between two Brazilians, an Italian and a Hawaiian, there was no real choice.
Mamiya’s victory was written in the salty stars of Hawaiian skies.
In his semi-final against Ferreira, he instantly found a deep Backdoor right, then threaded a left in quick succession. According to his patently cool post-heat analysis, the left surprised even him.
A 9.33 followed by a 9.57 left Ferreira gasping for more caffeine.
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This was Mamiya in peak flow. He’d slept on a cloud and awoken to crystal skies.
When the final came around, he was still up there.
“The beach is packed,” said Strider pre-final. “Everyone is surrounding him, but giving him enough space to let him feel the moment. He’s just like a little kid out here, but now he’s grown into this beautiful man. And he’s going out there, to take it down.”
Strider was his flamboyant, poetic best. He felt it. We all did.
Barron was the deity of the moment. Sand and air and water were one. The weight of past and future converged. As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment.
Mamiya was here, and this is where he was always meant to be. Everyone knew it.
Admittedly, this moment was somewhat soured by the unpleasant interlude of a Tyler Wright victory, but nothing’s perfect.
Undeterred by the vibe killer on the sand, Barron torched the line-up as soon as he hit the water.
He paddled furiously past Fioravanti for the first Pipe wave, dropping an 8.17 for the first of his keepers, then finding a Backdoor barrel for a low five, almost without drawing breath.
“That’s the advantage Barron has,” sparkled Ross Williams. “He doesn’t care if he’s a little too late or a little too deep.”
Fioravanti was to strike next. A long Backdoor barrel was a ten if he’d made it. And for a moment it looked like he would.
For Leo Fioravanti, Pipeline always presents an opportunity. Twice runner-up here, this wave seems to elicit his best.
But Mamiya’s next Backdoor wave was the mind killer. He weaved from deep, bending the cogs of time and exiting cleanly with a watchmaker’s precision.
9.80.
“It’s laughable,” said Jesse Mendes, without laughter. “What can you do about it? How can you stop him?”
For once, Mendes’ tone had appropriately turned rhetorical questions into statements.
A dual screen then showed us a pre-recorded interview with Mamiya. He was telling a story he hadn’t shared publicly before, about a freesurf at Pipe, just before he won there. It was his last wave of the session, and he was deep in a perfect barrel.
“I remember looking out. Then this feeling came on me in the barrel…this is going to sound really weird,” he interjects self-consciously. “And I was just standing there, looking at the view. And I remember it spit. And right when it spit, I remember this feeling of wow, I’m going to win this year. It was the craziest feeling. It was so defined. It almost felt like someone was there, or there was something going on. And I just felt it, like, instantly.”
Although he never used the term, he was describing a moment in flow, when everything slows. When you might see your past, present and future with a sudden ecstasy of clarity and connection.
And if not convinced by his words alone, note the way he stroked his arm as he began the story. The electricity of memory bringing goosebumps from past to present.
Luckily, lest we all got carried away in the grandeur of Mamiya’s elevated state of consciousness, Joe Turpel swooped in.
“He loves being a showman,” said Turpel like a vibe-robbing gull. “Wears a couple of chains. Listens to hip-hop a lot.”
Fioravanti, to his eternal credit, put his laces through two Backdoor waves in quick succession. The first, an 8.87, was superb. The second was much better. Those in the booth were quick to deem it the best wave of the heat. With Barron’s 9.8 on the board, there was no-where to go but ten.
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Replays of both waves showed Fioravanti covered for seconds longer. An eternity in barrel time.
But when the score came in at 9.10, Fioravanti’s vicious water slaps were justified.
He had been robbed by forces beyond our ken, but conveyed through the fingers of unseen judges.
Notably, the Brazilian judge who awarded a 10.00 for Barron’s 9.80, gave Fioravanti a mere 8.80 for his wave. I’d love to hear that side-by-side justification. But of course we never will.
At 17.97 apiece, it was only the second final in WSL history with a tied score (according to Joe).
As per the rules, Mamiya’s highest single score was definitive. The universe bent to his will once again.
Of the others, Italo was bridesmaid once more. He did little wrong, and has few flaws. His time will come again, always.
And what of Ian Gouveia?
What vast image troubles my sight? What shape with lion body and head of a man, gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun?
What Shark Coated rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches back on Tour and makes the semi final at Pipe?
Gouveia’s second coming is an unlikely story, and may well be as fleeting as the shadows of indignant desert birds, but he deserved his place here.
Of further deities: Kelly, post heat, was topless, trim, gracious, gorgeous.
“I like getting barrelled,” he stated when pressed by Strider about his future. “You can offer me a barrel anytime.”
And so we move. From leis and aching green palm fronds to sapless sandy heat and guttural desert smoke.
From surfing’s Mecca, the seven-mile-miracle to surfing’s apocalyptic nightmare. Slave pools and oily obscenity.
The WSL is nothing if not dystopian paradox.
Bring me the smoke and I’ll build you a fire.
See you in Abu Dhabi.
(And you, Kelly.)
