"Straight away I thought a mid-9. They had to pay, surely. They did not pay. 7.83 - a bizarre score."
One of the perennials of the pro surfing system, which is as much a permo-state as the bureaucrat controlled EU or the Commies in China, is its insistence that five well-placed re-entries and a floater, risk factor close to zero, will always score more highly than a wild, corked-out air completed with a desperate finger-clawing landing.
And so it was yesterday when Gabriel Medina, a three-time champ who has redefined the subtle art of the backside turn, a mirror of Ethan Ewing in some ways, was propelled into the quarter finals despite an backside air from Italo Ferreira that requires several slow-motion viewings to comprehend its complexity.
The best commentary on the subject came at The Late Afternoon Glass Off Instagram page, with below-the-line warriors all attempting their own Strike of Wrath. The one-time Surfing magazine photographer Jimmy Wilson even wheeled out his ol gotta-grease-the-landing-like-the-skaters-snowboarders-for-it-to-count schtick.
Wilson writes: I wrote an article about falling back in the whitewater after witnessing horrible judging at Bells in 2010. Back then they would have given this a 20. It is impressive, Italo is a maniac, but in skateboarding or snowboarding they don’t even count something if you touch your hand down. So scrubbing just isn’t gonna cut it now that we have wavepools where people like him get unlimited attempts at perfecting airs…Italo has crazy core strength, he bounced up super fast but the goal is always most advanced air with cleanest possible landing. Tons of nuance. I probably would’ve went lower on score and but there’s a full panel to decide and lowest/his best are tossed out
Others were of a similar mind:
Score was right on the money, if not maybe slightly high. Super inverted, slightly out of control. Either way I’m happy to see crazy stuff get rewarded even if it’s not the cleanest. Much more entertaining than a stock air rev
Wasted 95% of the wave so not really good use of the wave
And from Chris Cote, famous among BeachGrit fans for his Toxic Positivity series: Score was appropriate,but maybe a bit high. The air was wild and really sick but not controlled.
The contrarian view is if a man, or woman, isn’t rewarded for high-risk surfing, for providing one of the only highlights of the entire contest, maybe even the year, why in the hell would you?
Why not remain forever locked in 1985, busily squirrelling nuts, surfing with control, nothing out of place etc?
As the dearest of dear old pals put it in his daily contest report,
“Straight away I thought a mid-9. They had to pay, surely. They did not pay. 7.83 – a bizarre score.”
Meanwhile, and over at the WSL, Italo Ferreira commented, “1%”.
Where is your mind on the matter?