Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach: Day 3
Three days in and we are yet to see a clean wave ridden in anger at the Bells Bowl.
At least we got some juice today for the completion of the Women's Round of 16. Eight heats run in mostly bumpy OH surf that muscled up through the afternoon, and for a brief period looked quite dreamy with the sun out.
After all the excitement over the 'Make or Break' docuseries reveal, which is going to send surfing into the stratosphere - the same way it did for Formula One - I couldn't help but watch today's action through the imaginary eyes of the director of 'Make or Break'.
Tyler (Sloane/WSL)
The drama, the characters etc etc...and to be fair, with the Women's cut line being genuinely gnarly, the pressure and excitement of the day did steadily mount as those questions got resolved. Rookies and veterans stranded down in the arse end of the ratings fighting for their careers. None more-so than the Queen of Australian surfing, Steph Gilmore. More on her in a minute.
It seems to me though, and I wonder if you agree with me, that the biggest drama in pro surfing is an existential one. Whether it should exist at all, whether it is a proper sport etc etc. What percentage of surfers are hardcore fans, what percentage are barely there or couldn't GAF? But more importantly, what percentage of the surfing community are actively hostile and wish the whole thing would just hurry up and die? To be honest, I do oscillate between all three positions. Amongst my friend group I'd put the split at 10:50:40.
I can't think of any global sport with any remotely analagous dilemma baked into it. Tennis players hating the pro tennis tour? Golfers hating the US Open? Motor heads wishing F1 would shrivel up and die? A fighter going up on stage at the awards banquet for the main fighting organisation and saying “Fuck the UFC!”
Nah. Would not happen.
The relationship, mostly a protracted cold war, sometimes erupting into open conflict, rarely a loving embrace, between the vast majority of rec surfers and pro surfing has never been resolved, nor even acknowledged.
Would the Apple TV and Box to Box guys making 'Make or Break' dare to go there? It sure would make an interesting watch and paradoxically, might make pro surfing fascinating to the mass market fan.
They will get a chunk of drama from the Women's cut. For sport to matter, something has to be on the line and bringing that forwards into the mid-season will only help add drama, especially to days like today where surf quality is meh and Rabbit's vision of surfers being “free to be artists” will not be realised.
Steph Gilmore highlighted it beautifully in her post-heat presser after easily accounting for India Robinson. Gilmore made the simple but perfect observation that how you felt about the cut depended on what side of it you were sitting but “that was sport”.
“It's stressful”, she said before the cameras cut to Gilmore and Robinson in the change room with Gilmore saying how she might have paddled for a wave but “fuck it”. It was a human moment, after all the toxic positivity sandbagging we get from the commentary booth and management to see a normal emotion.
Gilmore looked quite brilliant, sitting well below the cut-line with a ton of pressure on her shoulders. The surf had picked up, well overhead sets, with a crumble and bump on it that made clean turns hard to come by. She punched the lips in front of her that others skated around and carved the corners in that inimitable style, so deceptively simple but containing so many variations in the angle of attack.
Steph (Sloane/WSL)
If the veterans had looked lost and forlorn at Pipe, and the rookies ascendant, the tables were decisively turned today at Bells. The rookies picked the wrong waves, missed sets, misjudged turns, outran the Bowl and other errors. Mostly, they were simply outsurfed. Tyler Wright put a beating on Gabriela Bryan, Carissa Moore laid down vicious one and two-turn combos to knock Alyssa Spencer. Only Luana Silva got the rough end of the pineapple after demolishing a set wave in the closing exchange with Brisa Hennessy to inexplicably come up two points shy of the eight point requirement. In tears on the beach, coach Rainos Hayes told her to keep her head high after the performance. Another human moment.
Was she robbed? We'll have to go back and review the tape. It sure looked like an 8 based on my viewing.
Luana (Hughes/WSL)
Isabella Nichols will be rueing her heat loss to Johanne Defay after scoring the highest scoring wave of the heat and then spending the last ten minutes embroiled in a series of poor wave choices and worse executions on the ones she did catch.
The sun had come out, a small crowd on the beach seemed only vaguely interested, the Swellians were nowhere to be seen - perhaps in training for better days and louder voice down at the Torquay Pub. Nonetheless, the entertainment factor was ramping up and us tragics were looking forwards to more heats to crown the day. It seemed quite brutal and heartless when Jessi Mylie-Dyer suddenly pulled the pin. Like a sudden call for last drinks when you just ordered a round.
Looking ahead at the match-ups between the men, I think we are going to have an epic day on our hands - possibly tomorrow?
Fanning v Igarashi to start off. Mick is a morning person. If he gets through Igarashi, anything could happen.
// STEVE SHEARER
Comments
A bump in swell and a little offshore breeze would have the women's quarters off the Richter scale.
Very interesting match ups lined up.
Surprised that you think surfers are anti-pro circuit in the main. Almost any and every surfer I talk to will watch the comps - partic Pipe, Chopes, JBay - if they can/have nothing else on. We all want fewer surfers in the water but how pro surfing impacts on crowds remains a mystery. What other sport requires such a high level of competitiveness to enjoy? Certainly not snowboarding or darts.
I pondered this a similar sentiment the other day. I don’t like competitive surfing, think the WSL bogged extreme rail at each turn (horrendous pun intented) but will watch the comp if I have the time.
I dunno why I do though? Maybe to see the worlds best preform in a different atmosphere? Also, it has to be live. Won’t bother with replays.
Yup more 40 : 40 : 20
Squeaky wheels getting the grease
As a Gold Coaster it's been nice having the WSL Somewhere Else for the past couple of years. In my experience the event itself impacts crowds by drawing in would be competitors and WSL groupies, but also because they get to claim an entire break of their choosing for the comp across multiple days during what I would consider to be the best time of year for surf here. Only two people in the water at once letting decent waves roll through unridden waiting for perfection. How effed is that! The two waves in this article look pretty fun to me, I'd be happy to be riding waves like that more often
The GC. The place is a shit show and I prefer they keep the comps at the shit show. In the grand scheme of things a surf comp has little impact on the overall mess that is Las Vegas by the ocean.
Great wrap up. Good to see a glimpse of some surfable waves. Let’s hope it’s a sign of things to come.
I'm one of the 50% that are barely there Steve but I like watching comps.
I'll happily watch the pros doing their thing if the waves are good.
There's the rub. The waves have to be good.
Yesterday pm for example I found time to watch a bit and was tapping from the comp to the Greenmount cam and decided my surf viewing time was better off being spent watching the punters on the cam. Seemingly endless 3-4 foot peelers with all sorts of crazy shit going down with one guy I remember linking all the way through including a couple of barrels-stoked for him and as a viewer. Versus the pros floating around in onshore mush, I couldn't be bothered waiting for a set to come so I could see someone actually riding a wave.
I been at Cooli all week Mattlock. Some great surfing going down amongst the mayhem. Good mix of people shredding. Haven't been remotely inclined to look at the Bells cast.
I just watched a random replay of the greeny cam starting at 1.56pm Monday.
A guy on his backhand absolutely ripping snapper to shreds on a set wave and catches it all the way through rainbow and greeny until he's out of site on the cam.
Went to the competitors site cam rewind for the further back view and he rode the wave for 1 minute 43 seconds. Looked like he could have milked an extra 17 sec of face time to hit 2 miutes too if he didn't pull off haha
Nuts!!!
I love Bells and i love your writing FR. Put together, this is some of your finest in my opinion.
I also agree on the whole, most surfers i know couldn't give a shit about the pro tour at all, especially once you hit the Southern Ocean and Indian. I reckon those numbers are pretty much spot on.
Fark was so shit seeing Nicholls butcher her last 10 minutes, but i don't reckon that will ever happen again.
How good is it having Bells back again. One of the best moments from today for me was hearing Layne say that winning her first Bell was every bit as good as winning a world title. That surely puts an exclamation mark on what Bells really means to all surfers who love the comp...me included. I just love Bells fullstop. Cheers FR!
(btw crossing fingers for a Sal V Steph final and Fanning V Ewing final.
Just wanna add too, it doesn't matter if you're there or watching on webland, there's always alot of special moments that happen when you're involved in the Bells comp, from near or far. I reckon they carry alot of significance.
Missed it live but I watched Luana Silva's heat on the analyser (very upset those bastards worked out how to put adds on there), and she might have been underscored but I don't think it was quite a 7.94 relative to Brisa's scoring waves so no harm no foul imo.
That picture of Steph is pretty epic. Front leg and arms fully extended she seems a bit dancer like. The foam to one side, clean face to the other and Steph somehow connecting the two. Unique photo.
It's a funny one isn't it. I've been a fan of competitive surfing since I can remember. My eyes were glued to the TV as a tween when surfabout burst onto the screens with all of it's fanfare. I've been to Bells more times than I can remember (not recently) but always tune in. It's a special time for us down here. Who doesn't love the Aussie surfing heroes (who are most often successful competitors). From the head standing Snowy McCallister to MP, Rabbit, MR to Mick and Parko...Gail and Pauline to Steff and Sally. etc... etc... Maybe it was young naivete...maybe I'm older and more cynical. Maybe the WSL has well and truly fucked the format and their commercial goals are more obvious. I'm not a fan of the WSL....but still tune in to the odd comp. Regardless. Bells is back. I'll be watching. Might have a meat pie for lunch and put the footy on later. Got my ugg boots on too. Go the Aussies.
Nice one mate!
Fully concur
Cheers Ringy.....and then....you get a day like today.
Can't say I'm a fan of competition in surfing, but I like watching comps because you see unsanitised/unedited surfing by great surfers, and these days the filming and production is generally really good. (Full rides, paddle to finish, mistakes & ugly bits included, unlike most flicks/edits). Take away the pointscoring and just shoot 30 minute 2 or 4 man freesurfs and I'd just as happily watch it. Even better if they ditched the corpo bs commentary.
That said, I reckon your ratios are pretty close to right Steve. Maybe a little more indifferent and a little less openly hostile in the younger generations.
That 90%' couldn't GAF or are haters of competitive surfing seems pretty accurate to this little black duck Steve.
To watch a chosen pairing at any one time be accorded the entire line up is excruciating to watch. FFS ... to see nice clean waves go unridden at one of Australia's premier surf spots is very sad indeed.
If they must hold competitions to keep big business happy bring it back to no more than a 4 day window as it was back in the day: i.e. all done and dusted in a few days and then give the break back to those who deserve it.
Womens' and Mens'
6 person one hour heats (3 go through to the next round - 3 go home)
No leg ropes. Swim in if you can't stick a manoeuvre*
No skis. Paddle out and take a few on the head*
No continuous commentary please; viewing quality waves and surfing is enough.
*that makes for equally great viewing.
And then you get a heat like Mick Fanning vs Kanoa Igurashi, wave for wave, Bells' finest lines.... styling clinic, eager crowd.
It's probably been covered already, but why are they starting at 10.30 Vic time?
This morning (4th day) it was pumping at the swellnetcams on the island. I would have been out there in the hightide sitting in the little slabs in the rips around Woooooollies or Kilis
I used to be in the hostile camp but have shifted a little, mainly because I like some of the surfers. My main complaints with the format of the competition are:
-scoring components: this should include a much larger style/watchability component in the score. there are way too many pro's who can do a lot but look horrible doing it. ie steph and carissa should win more, because their style makes them so much more watchable, not sure about the mens but poo stance air tricks should get you minus points (nothing wrong with airs but doing it stylishly or spectacularly like Ando or Noah should get you more points than poo stancing some stupidly ugly technical trick). Also wide stance surfing looks bad and should have points deducted. Similarly fin pivot surfing is boring, hit the lip with your rail, pivoting on the tail has never looked good (its a short board not a noserider with a pivot fin), and its just a poor excuse for not timing a turn that uses the whole board instead of just the fins.
-scoring calculations: have a cumulative score, or at least a wave count that doesn't encourage people to sit around and not surf the waves. This would also minimise the effect of who get's lucky with waves. When top pros like Jordy and JJF say its more about luck than wave selection, then you should change it so its less about luck in my view. Plus this solves the boringness of heats during bad conditions when noone catches anything, and would potentially encourage more daring surfing if they could catch and accumulate scores over 5+ waves instead of just best 2 or 3 scores. Let it be more of how many good turns and scoring manouvres can you do during the heat, rather than did you get lucky enough on one or two waves. Maybe even have a 50 50 scoring split 50% the old scoring method plus 50% who accumulated the most from scoring manouvres.
-conditions: I don't know if this is doable but it would be nice if they could find a way where they can actually run the timing or location of the comp flexibly enough to do it in good conditions - I'm guessing this would be unfeasible and too hard,
-commentary: watch the tennis and learn how to do commentary in a less intrusive less annoying style. Let people enjoy a wave being surfed in silence then talk between waves. And definitely get rid of the over the top corporate high energy bs, its not needed and its annoying to anyone who isn't on some kind of upper or hasn't drunk 10 redbulls.