“This is rude…and absurd.”
Two of the biggest names in surfing, two-time world champ Tom Carroll and the famously maltreated gal’s queen Pauline Menczer, have slammed contest organisers after a Legends Superheat at the World Club Championships failed to include anyone with a double X chromo-code.
The Instagram account associated with the mostly well-received Girls Can’t Surf, a documentary that “follows the journey of a band of renegade surfers who took on the male-dominated professional surfing world to achieve equality and change the sport forever.”
One female reviewer, however, summed it up thus: “Blanket sentiments that some men said and did some unpleasant things, that some of the women were likely wronged by their female contemporaries without the specifics of who, doesn’t serve these women, or the audience.”
Anyway, at the 2026 World Club Championships, a board riders event held at Snapper Rocks and which finished four days ago, Torquay beat the Kolohe Andino-led San Clemente, a legends superheat was held.
Matt Archbold, Dean Morrison, Tom Carroll, Jay Phillips, Nick Vasiceck, Mark Occhilupo and Bede Durbidge.
A few dubious includes, and some wild spellings in the graphic, but viewers were quickly alerted to the absence of women from some of the biggest names in the sport.
Tom Carroll: “This is rude and absurd.”
Pauline Menczer: “Thanks Tom sad to see this is still happening.”
Filmmaker Christopher Nelius, “I remember when we started pitching Girls Can’t Surf I spoke to the WSL about doing a women’s legends heat and just got blank looks.”
Of course, the truth is a little more mundane than wild misogynists with jack boot on the necks of terrified gals.
The Legends heat was thrown together with whomever was around as a little light entertainment before the final.
At least that’s the story I got.
Or is something sinister afoot here?
Your candour appreciated, as always.