Watch: Richie Porta Discusses "Best Heat In The History Of The Sport"
Ostensibly, this clip is designed to explain how judges will score Teahupoo.
Barrels in case you were wondering...
More insightful is Richie Porta replaying vision and anecdotes from the 2014 Semi-Final between JJF and Slater, that show how fluid judging can sometimes be.
The opening exchange has JJF scored 9.90 and Slater a 10.
Says Richie: "John's wave is amazing, it could've been a 10. If Kelly hadn't of got the wave straight after it, it would've been a 10."
Everyone understands that surfing is scored subjectively, but that quip from Richie belies how this can alter the outcomes.
Anyway, it's worth watching just to enjoy that heat once more. And for what it's worth, Slater's wave shouldn't have been a 10. He didn't ride up the wall to "avoid the foamball", as Richie mistakenly explains it.
Slater was sucked up the face, there's no foamball when it happens, so nothing to avoid, but fortunate for him he corrects the error and turns it into a positive, and gullible judges believe it.
9.50 for mine. Totally objective, of course.
John John wins the heat.
And the Final too.
Comments
Best heat by far
agreed! And next heat (Kelly vs Gab) would be second!
"Only Kelly could have done it" when referring to avoiding the foamball taking a highine.
Bodyboarders and shark island stand ups have been doing that since the early 90's.
Myself included. Might sound like a tosser but there are a lot more good surfers in the world than the top 30 pros.
Excellent heat though. The final could have been Kelly's if he made it through a foamball on one wave.Bodyboarders have been doing that too since the 80's or 90's..
Hard to compare when one is lying down and the other standing.
Agreed bodyboarding is a lot easier, however some stand ups like ox, speg and steve fienbeir have been avoiding foamballs as long as ive been surfing maybe longer. Its not a thing only Kelly can do in waves like that.
I hope the WSL can post similar short judging analysis, comparing great surfers on excellent waves.
"Only Kelly could have done it" maybe referring to avoiding the foamball, taking a highline ......to get big scores...... in a major competition heat;
no home break advantage, with potentially the whole surfing world able to watch a bloody reef implant for years on insta, utube, etc.
Please share your edited epic perfect "10s" surf videos on utube, so we can all enjoy these local legends ripping. Post the links below.
I see your point. By the way i gave up competing when i realized we were surfing shitty closeouts on shitty beachbreaks and lame manouvres won the heats while all the reefbreaks i was surrounded by were pumping.I appreciate the skill in competing at Kelly etc level i just prefer to watch and surf with good free surfers.But i realize i was probably wrong in my post and attitude.
Go Hog im backing him, he deserves it.
"... have been doing that since the early 90's"
pffft
How would you know? You're from the gold coast and call double overhead waves 12 foot lol.
Go sit in the channel next time the island is double to triple overhead , watch the locals and learn a few things.Better bring your scarf it might get chilly.
you talkin' to me? how would I know what?
double pfft
The one time I was getting barrelled I thought I may have to avoid the foam ball so I opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder and realized that only my leg rope had to worry about it.
Go Filipe!
I wanna see Courtney Conlogue on any one of those... yeew!!!
Since Pickles ain't here.
Kelly and the rest can stay the fuck away from my foam balls
Seems like a close shave of the foam balls is a real thing these days , especially with the younger folk .....
The KON liked this heat. The KON also liked Felipes 0 heat score total. Obrigado.
Sponsored by Outerknowm....who would have known!!
Goes to show how mundane most contests are that we're all still banging on about an eight year old heat.
High scoring Pipe final with Gabs & Jules worth a watch to the finish