Yago Dora new world surf champ as “monster” swell fails to materialise at Fiji’s Cloudbreak

“You cannot win like Yago Dora unless you have the foundational power you see in all the great surfers who win world titles."

In disappointingly small, but wildly pretty conditions, at Fiji’s Cloudbreak, world number one Yago Dora has being crowned world champ defeating Californian Griffin Colapinto in a relatively easy one-set victory.

In his first-ever appearance on Finals Day, Yago Dora, who is twenty-nine, left Colapinto, often described as a Gandhi or Teddy Roosevelt figure, electric with terror and squirming like a child bride naked under her robe.

“You cannot win and you don’t got get to number one and wearing that yellow jersey unless you have all those weapons, all those different variations, the foundational power you see in all the great surfers who win world titles,” the commentator, world number 17 and stilt cancer survivor Richie Lovett summed up.

Griffin Colapinto looped his turns around the throats of Italo Ferreira and Jordy Smith en route to the final but was finally garrotted by an aggressive Yago Dora, a victim, perhaps, of having to surf three high-intensity heats.

Surf fans were left perplexed in the dying minutes of the final when the broadcast went silent for indeterminable minutes and featured a static shot of bungalows built over a man-made lagoon, created by dynamiting the reef.

With twenty seconds left, and needing an almost perfect score, Colapinto suckered Yago Dora into blocking him on a wave, jumped off, scooped the wave behind with six seconds left and nearly threaded an inside tube to what would’ve been a miracle victory.

“The signs were all there for me,” said Yago Dora. “It didn’t matter who I surfed against.”

For all of us who have born with a little reverence for the things that are beautiful and and a little love for thing things that are terrible, we were thrilled with Yago Dora’s win, Griffin Colpinto’s desolation – coming so close etc, and the letdown of what could’ve been as purifying as a visit by the Holy Ghost himself.

Meanwhile, Caz Marks just in the water against Molly Picklum, heat two of the gals.