“I feel like when you surf, it's the closest thing to flying,”
Picture a crummy beach on the Argentine coast in the guts of winter, snow on the sand, the kind of cold that makes a brother bang the dang snooze button or, at the least, dive into an hour of death scrolling while the earth warms a little.
But there! Look! An ol’ man sprinting toward the water with the joy of a kid loosed in a buck-a-dance strip bar. The man is Leandro Usuna, wrapped in a bank of rubber, and nicknamed The Grinch cause of all the waves he’s stolen over the decades.
The Grinch is all het up ‘cause he wants to another swing at the Olympics. He hit Tokyo in 2020, missed Teahupoo in 2024 and if he gets into LA in two years time the daddy of two will be almost forty one.
“I’ve thought about it obviously. I’ve done the calculation. I’m like, ‘Whoa, if I do qualify, I’m going to be this age’, but then you look at (skater) Andy Macdonald (who debuted at Paris 2024 aged 51) and you look at these guys and instead of being like, ‘Oh, what are they still doing there, those old guys?’ It’s kind of like, ‘Wow, that’s inspiring’.
“Looking at him, I had not in one moment thought, ‘What is he still doing there?’ I looked at him and I was like, ‘He’s the coolest guy I’ve ever met. This guy is awesome! He’s still in the Olympics, and he’s still going for it’. So that’s the kind of message I want to give.”
The Grinch sure don’t hate surf, surprising, maybe, ’cause after thirty years most of us are infected with a light antipathy.
“I feel like when you surf, it’s the closest thing to flying,” Usuna says. “You feel so connected because you’re so in the moment and so in the present when you’re surfing a wave. You’re not thinking about the future or the past. You’re thinking about what’s going on in that moment. It’s like therapy. And just being in the water is everything for me.”
Also a very important teacher too, says the ol man.
“It’s the best way to learn about cultures and respect and the main codes in life,” Usuna says. “Just to be patient, respect one another, take care of each other. Live and love the simple things in life. I think you learn that from travelling and learn that from different cultures because they all have those same unique codes and values.
“The world’s big, but in surfing, it’s a small place too. Surfing makes it seem small because you get so connected to people from so far away through the sport. It’s a whole different food, culture, time. Everything’s different except the emotions you get from going in the water and surfing.”