El Salvador Pro 2023: Day 1
El Salvador Pro 2023: Day 1
Huge, huge day of pro surfing in clean, then junky 3-4ft surf at Punta Roca. Mostly very B-grade surf quality - bringing to mind a stretched-out, poor man's Trestles-type of wave. As a rebound from the Surf Ranch fiasco it did the job for the WSL in terms of re-setting the narrative and giving them something new to talk about.
Kelly Slater got bumped on the first day of competition. His initial heat score from Round 1 against Ethan Ewing and Matty McGillivray was an 11.60 to Ewing's 15.37. He backed that up in his Elimination Heat against Medina with a 10.60 to Medina's 13.20. That's probably a very fair assessment of Kelly's competitiveness against the elite outside of Teahupoo and Pipeline. 3 to 4 points behind in anything outside of heavy left reefs means Kelly is not making it out of the Second (Elimination) Round on any given day.
KS (WSL/Hughes)
Colour commentator and close mate Strider Wasilewski tried to pump up Kelly in his losing presser saying his surfing looked inspired (it didn't) to which Kelly replied he was “not in a good head space” and that he was “not enjoying competition”. Which raises all kinds of uncomfortable questions as to why he was awarded a full 2023/2024 wildcard. Such as: If he can't make the cut and is not enjoying competition anymore why not let the integrity of the sport's architecture play out and relegate him or leave him to retire? If he is no longer competitive at most venues let someone who is onto the tour etc etc. We do need to acknowledge the deeper absurdity that Kelly has Buckley's chance of qualifying for the Olympics in the crappy QS-style waves of an ISA comp but would be a red hot medal favourite at the actual Olympic venue. There will be Olympic qualifiers not qualified to wax Kelly's board up at 8ft Teahupoo.
A full twelve hours of surfing today saw a massive eight surfers cut from the draw. Kelly, gone. Jack Robinson, also gone. He still looks under-cooked after the knee injury sustained at Bells. In a post-heat presser there was a lot of talk about “my journey” and other postmodern sports talk but the body language spoke much louder than words. The twitching and frowning face shows Jack is not in a happy place.
John Florence, gone. 17 minutes into a 30-minute heat and John is sitting on a 4.67. It's a sleepy, gurgly lineup and he does not look fired up. Rio Waida is all over him, taking waves under priority, gurgly little double-ups which he turns into 7's with slashes and airs. With less than 10 to go, John rides the wave of the day - one big torqued out fins-free layback in the lip which judges were cool on. The 8.43 score left him still needing a high 5 to progress. He couldn't find it.
JJF (WSL/Hughes)
The widely acknowledged best surfer in the world's last World Title was 2017. The post-Australian portion of the tour that year consisted of Fiji, J-Bay, Tahiti, Trestles, France, Portugal, Pipe.
D'ya see the difference? I mean between that and the current Tour? Watching him scrap for a 6 on a waist-high piece of gurgle looked like a QS guy struggling to make a heat, not a guy who could be redefining performance surfing in his prime years and now looks like he is dying on the vine.
Jordy's much closer to the end of his career than John but looks in a similar mindset. Struggling to stay motivated and engaged in what is mediocre surf and a clearly declining tour schedule. Jordy is skilled enough and physiologically gifted enough to make the cut for another half decade if he chooses but staying motivated with no/tiny chance to make the Final 5 will be an increasing slog. His final chance to reel back a deficit against Caio Ibelli featured a weird, aborted Superman air that seemed a perfect representation of where Jordy's head is at.
Caio (WSL/Hughes)
The opening two heats of the day featured the best surfing of the day for me, and a continuation of the current schism which opened up at Surf Ranch and caused so much open dissent from the Brazilian Storm lead runners. Ethan Ewing's perfect, seamless railwork in Heat 1 included three rides, all sizzling and above 7 (could have been higher) for a 15.37 total. Followed by Toledo's twitchier, more exaggerated upper body movement turns and big airs for a 15.76 total.
In short, we are still in the same boat we were in at Surf Ranch with the same potential for confusion.
My gut feeling is Griffin Colapinto will thread the needle between the Ewing rail game and Toledo airs with a “compromise” style/performance combination. That's not a very ballsy call, seeing as Colapinto wears the yellow and took home the highest heat total of the day.
Griff (WSL/Hughes)
Today could easily be the best day of the waiting period which suggests this incredible year of WSL skunking may have many more grinding QS-style days ahead. John, Kelly, Jack, Jordy - there's 13 World Titles worth of talent going home with last place finishes on Day One and you just couldn't imagine that outcome in any kind of realistic “Dream Tour” scenario.
Resignation seems the order of the day for now, so we soldier on, I guess, with sportswashing the biggest winner today.
// STEVE SHEARER
Comments
Thanks Steve.
I had to laugh as Pete Mel relayed the text the surfers got pertaining to what the judges were looking at in their criteria. Took him about 3 straight minutes, I paraphrase:
‘The judges are looking for a large variety of committed and critical manoeuvres. The manoeuvres need to be perform on the biggest and most critical sections. We will also reward progressive manoeuvres and ensuring there is flow throughout the ride. Something about barrels.’
In essence they added in anything that they could possibly score on - but also may as well just have said ‘surf good’.
Good old scattergun approach.
Good write up Steve.
Steph had the highest heat total in the women's QR which was good.
I remember getting a bus from a border town in Honduras to La Punta 20 years ago, My commitment wasn't rewarded and the reports of the quality wave were over hyped... The more things change the more they stay the same.
I'm not buying into Ewing. I found his numerous hyper-short-arc wiggles, which I suppose is now called a 'bottom turn', irritating & unbearable. My face totally winces. I acknowledge this wave looks unpredictable (in its sections) & piss-weak, thus accounting for Ethan's hyper-wiggles before blasting off the top but Filipe & Griffin really shone today and the type of clinical pretty surfing Ethan is doing should never be scored above Filipe & Griffin, who both did super sick high & inverted (twisted) airs. As for Gabriel, there is something amiss in his surfing but maybe it is just the wave and his timing is not yet spot on. I thought Caitlan was very progressive & underscored on her 1st scoring wave. It cannot be denied Stephanie ripped the bag, in her classic form. Brilliant Steph. As for Kelly, those boards he rides suck. They simply look ugly.
"Hyper short arc wiggles" Lol, that's literally the most ridiculous thing I'll read today.
May I respectfully disagree with your ‘hyper-short-arc wiggles’ description.
I enjoyed watching this surf comp in the mornings when conditions were clean.
Kelly was way better surfing than the majority of action in NSW I usually get to see... more please ... only in clean quality overhead waves for a Professional elite surf competition.
Judging seems too reactive to wims; of the waves & wow factors.
There may still be WSL wiggle room in the judging... if a surfer avoids the barrel you should lose points!
EE speed turns at 4.10 (avoiding the barrels x2 ) for longer rail turns, a rotation & completion; the judges have given him 2 points more than K.S. & M.M x 2 for better waves.
Thanks Steve for another great summary!
Ahh I think you are wrong.
Sportswashing!
ELo’s strategy is finally becoming clear…he’s after the Saudi money!
The WSL LIV PGA tour coming soon!!
Honestly, how long can the Woz sustain itself feeding off the tourism industry now that the surf industry is broke/not interested? The World's best being forced to surf B grade waves in first world countries while the audience wants/watches the next best, surfing A grade in the developing Nations (Hi Dane).
Surely it can't be too far away from a LIV taking the top 10 from the Woz and giving us what we want.
It feels like we've been flogging the horse for such a long time now.
You said it yourself, there is no money left in surfing, so who is paying for the alternate tour?
"Almost one-third of large corporations paid no income tax in Australia in 2020-2021, including more than half of the nation’s major mining, energy and water companies, a new report shows."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/03/australia-tax-tra...
...." That includes Adani Mining Pty Ltd, one AGL entity, Alcoa Australian Holdings, Ampol, Anglo American Australia, ExxonMobil Australia, two Glencore entities, a Peabody Australia holding company, Santos, two Shell energy entities, Whitehaven coal, Woodside Petroleum, and Yancoal Australia."
"Chevron paid just $30 of income tax in Australia, according to the report, despite having a total income of $9.1bn and a taxable income of $113m."....
love yr writing Steve - you bring up a good point when comparing the schedule of waves available now compared to when JJF won his titles. Think i may stop watching the circus - only a few like Ethan and the prospect of Jbay, Teahupoʻo keep me still interested. Judging is often just a lottery anyway.
Yep I’m with you. Got more time than I ever have had to watch comps (wfh full time) but can barely sit through a final these days. The whole tour is just so bloody dull now
Problem the wsl have got now is that the whole shemozzle of a tour is boring as hell......it used to be fairly exciting with moments of utter brillance as in fiji and chopes with a fitting end in Hawaii but now its same same and not different........watched half of kellys heat and went and did something better.....yawn
Punta Roca is definitely no cloudbreak, but I found today quite enjoyable to watch. It’s a fairly high performance wave for a change and at least it’s not another fat, slopey right ala sunset, bells and margs.
My main gripe with it is that it’s not a left, I’m sick of seeing these guys only surf on either their forehand or backhand. The tour really needs a high performance left just to mix it up a bit.
Jack Robbo must be desperately trying to qualify for the Olympics. His knee might not be healed but yeah if he is the 2nd ranked Aussie in the top 10 he gets his slot in the Olympics, so I guess that's a massive motivation? Or maybe I have misunderstood the whole Olympic qualification thing...
I’m not sure too many of the CT surfers give a toss about the Olympics but I could be wrong
I reckon Olympic gold would be worth millions and they'd all be going for it. If JJF wins it he'll retire from the WSL and just chase mad waves. Or not haha but would be interesting to see
Do you think Italo made millions since his gold? He certainly didn’t retire to chase mad waves :) I think you’re buying into the narrative a bit too heavily, the Olympics need surfing to try and reach a younger generation, surfing sure doesn’t need the Olympics
Gold medal at solid Chopes - I would reckon that’ll be a totally different level of exposure to the last tetrapod Olympics. Have to be a burning desire.
They’re all chasing the accolades, it’s the raison d’être for the CTers.
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I'm having a bit of a watch now of the beginnings of the day and it looks like a nice slow day on a surfcoast reef. Maybe I'm wrong with that assessement?
Re: Jordy and JJF not looking too involved: perfect time to break out a twin fin and win in a left-field way.
Just because Jack didn’t win doesn’t mean his knee is still dodgy. The turns and airs he’s throwing wouldn’t be done on a dodgy knee. He’s probably just lost that flow / mojo he had when everything he touched turned to gold. He’ll be right.
It's not J bay, but it still very rippable and ten times better viewing than a wave pool.
I thought the local guy was badly underscored on some of his best waves, in his first heat, with just 5 points or so awarded for doing loads of radical turns with variety and the usual 'speed, power and flow'... The judges woke up eventually and gave him a 7 or so for a later wave, but the damage was already done... Disappointing.
Jordy still wants it. I've seen him doing warm up surfs pre heat with a filmer in dodgy windblown beachies before his ISA heats against no bodies when he could be kicking back chilling/drinking/sightseeing knowing that he could phone it in hungover.
JJF looks terrible, maybe that new board? Ironic for a man that's sold so many ghosts for pyzel.
I'm off for waves, the forecast for the next week looks dire compared to what it's been the last 6 weeks.
Got to the part about ‘re-setting the narrative..’ and pulled out. Maybe I’m just not ready for deep dives into new paradigm shifts in surf forum lingo, way too many extraneous narratives intruding into my consciousness.
i wonder if the wsl reads these articles and comments. slater may be past it, but i thought his surfing vs gabe was slightly more enjoyable to watch
i think you are on the money with griff steve- i haven’t given him the attention he deserves but he seems to not be the best at anything, but very good at everything
….it hurt me to watch jjf’s heat, to my mind he is easily the best to watch and seeing him trying to scratch for a five at the end put a tear in my eye
A Hawaiian, a Brazilian, an Australian and a Yank walk into a semi final..
you can’t script this!
Gees Steve, time does not seem to have mellowed your feelings regarding Slater's wildcard. I really thought you'd come around to it as a great idea well executed.
Any truth in the rumors of an amendment to the US Olympic team selection criteria that deducts a point for any active hair follicle above the neckline?
JJ should be safe as science is yet to definitively prove those wispy things on his chin are actually hairs (funding for the research having been diverted into developing the COVID vaccine in 2020..who's up for a 6th shot?)
Fioravanti was on fire; fast & flowing!
Maybe the judges were high scoring the wave more than surf board skills...?.
Bryan almost fell off her wave @30sec & gets a 7.8?
Caitlin shows speed, progression, flow and control for 6.8?
Tip for Caitlin ....make manoeuvrers look hard & awkward in 2023.... or keep doing great surfing!
Wave choice wins