"It tipped me over. I was splashing the water looking back at this massive pack of non-Australians that were going bonkers."
You know the story, by now. An epic Gold Coast Pro final that lit up the surfing world between an old-timer coming out of a retirement, Julian Wilson, and the two-time world champ and small-wave specialist Filipe Toledo.
Filipe Toledo won it due, in most part, to a ride described as “the most overscored wave in history”, a nine with change for two turns, although your ol pal DR, in a rare moment of consensus with Brazilian surf fans, believed it deserved the drenching it got from judges.
Two days back, the noted and honourable core lords, Vaughan Blakey and Jed Smith, revealed what went on in a final so heated Filipe Toledo was giving “submissive hand jive” to a furious Julian Wilson’s dismissive open palms.
Today, Jed loosed his promised interview with Julian Wilson on the subject and finds the former title contender in an uncharacteristically philosophical mood.
Asked about the scoring in the final, Julian gets into the “beauty” of subjective scoring and the importance of drama in sports.
“For people to even be talking about it is good for the sport. If you get past champions weighing in with their opinions and their angles, that’s valuable information to educate and inform. The core surfer audience is investing their opinions and their hearts into watching the sport…there’s a conversation in the community about which way did it go. I saw it this way, their mate saw it that way, Mick Fanning saw it this way, Taj Burrow saw it that way. You can be passionate one way or the other but there’s no distinct line in the sport. You can’t pull out a speedometer, a carvo-meter or an angle-meter and go, okay, the science is, a wins and b gets second. It’s never going to be that way and that’s one of the coolest things about surfing – that it’s never a finish line.”
On his last wave, Julian tells Jed he feels like he “did exactly what was within the scoring scope and handed it to the judges to make that decision… I could’ve surfed it six different ways but in that moment when you’re ultra-focussed, everything’s connected and you feel you know exactly what to do, I ticked that box and handed it to them for what I thought was the win. But it wasn’t. And I’m sweet with that.”
As for Filipe’s nine he says, “He got a nine for two two turns on not the biggest wave of the heat and in a short little bit of area. From the back it didn’t look anything too special. The score came super quick and before he’d even got out the back… it really put the momentum in his corner.”
As for the spray he gave Filipe out the back, Julian says he was infuriated by the Brazilians celebrating a Toledo win with eight minutes to go.
“It absolutely did me in. They poked a bear for sure. Eight minutes left? It tipped me over. My blood started boiling. I was splashing the water looking back at this massive pack of non-Australians that were going bonkers… I was so worked up that when I got off the jetski I let Filipe have yet all. I just went off on him and, like, to his point, he’s totally right, it’s not him, it’s not his fault… but it’s hard not to get worked up about that stuff. And then he made a really bad decision with priority that almost got me to flip the script on the whole final.”
Essential.
