JBay.

[daisy]

that was a real low point for the commentary team.

an almost complete abnegation of the reality of the heat as it was unfolding before them.

that was fun to listen to

[black duck]

he looks rickety.

slater looks slow. the dream is over.

You 2 have rocks in your head. Very quick to put the boot in.
What happens if he nails the back end of the year? mmmmm?
He won 3 comps last year and didn't look to shabby at the pipeline.

#trollinghard

[alakaboo]

I don't understand the commentary love for Nat Young. Next great goofy hope? Methinks not.
Freddy P is making him look like a pretender, and Owen Wright makes Nat's backhand top turn look like Shearer cleaning windows with a hangover.

Oh, and there is something BIG in the water at the top of the point.
Think it is a dolphin, but we'll have to wait and see if Taj craps himself for confirmation.

[steve shearer]

BD, the Slater implosions are becoming a trend.
and it's not just that he is losing but the way he is losing.

[black duck]

BD, the Slater implosions are becoming a trend.
and it's not just that he is losing but the way he is losing.

Currently 3rd in the world (soon to drop back a bit).
Not losing too badly I would think.
I agree he has dropped the ball on a couple of clutch heats this year, Margarets and Fiji coming to mind, however, he's still in it.

[Beanpole]

Personally it kind of bugs me when it looks like a good down the line speed run with a bit of a tube section but they try for a re entry and come unstuck.
Being an old cruiser I get annoyed by a missed oportunity but i know there's no points in that though.

[steve shearer]

BD, Slater's position is hiding his real performance level this year.

and he knows it.


He's imploded or shattered like a piece of fine china at every comp this year, bar Brazil.

He was made to look like a chump at four to six foot J-Bay for chrissakes. By a goofy-footer. At anywhere near his average performance levels he'd have that shitt for breakfast.

It was a weird, underwhelming day yesterday. Like none of the top seeds really knew what to do with it. Maybe excepting Parko.

[Davros]

Thought the board dims and volume feature per rider was slightly interesting.

Did anyone catch what Slater was riding, didn't look good for the waves but it's prob because he couldn't get his act wired.


Never write of a champion like Slater I guess.

[steve shearer]

five ten rookie.

Looked like a standard thruster and he looked profoundly uncomfortable and out of sync with it's reaction times and natural turn angles.

[crabmeat thompson]

I think slater's boards are all wrong ... he needs to end the quad experiment unless it's hawaii, fiji or tahiti. His wave face speed looks to have dropped dramatically from just last season, which I thought was way down on his career average as it was -- hence the no number 12.

Slater's surfing is reliant on wave face speed. Everything he does , the lines he draws, the turns he makes ... you could see those big snaps he was trying and getting lipped on, his body position and torque were all good, he just didn't have the speed to re-engage his rail on the wave face and turn out of them.

Reminds me of all of my favourite boxers at one stage or another. The first thing that went was their hand speed. They couldn't hit a target and then they could block a hit. And then things just got sad.

[steve shearer]

Totally disagree.

It's the quads he's looking good on.
And there was no problem with his wave face speed. Last year or this year.
It's the reaction times and handing errors at speed that are costing him.
He almost fell on every turn last night. Slater never falls, thats his trademark: the recovery from impossible positions.
Now he falls on regulation issue turns.

Maybe the pressure coming from ZoSea is fcuking with his head.

Whatever the cause, something is broken and it may not be fixable.

[Nick Carroll]

Nothing's broken, the guy is 42 years of age for chrissake, he's surfed one thousand heats at WCT level. One thousand heats!! it's ridiculous. What he is, is over it and he doesn't know it, or doesn't want to know it.

Go surfing with him outside the heat arena and you'll see all the fantastic skills and timing etc, even better since it's leavened with deep experience. Inside a heat, at some equally deep level, he has stopped caring as much. In heats where it starts to really matter, he's making mistakes he hasn't made in 20 years. It's a concentration/focus thing, not a surf skill thing.

[romak50]

You're not addressing the fact that he's 65 or some ridiculous age. Yeah mentally he may be slightly off but I reakon that's due to the fact that at his age his body is finally showing it. That in itself probably making him frustrated, pushing beyond his capabilities. Blowing moves he would have made a few years ago.

Either way wouldn't surprise me if he retires this year only to commit full time to the BWWT so that sozea still get their pound of flesh and can market the slater factor. Slater being part of sozea and all. A nice snuggly transition.

A measly 11 world titles will be it for poor slater.

[pearceD]

Why does the ASP and seemingly, the judges have a constant hard-on for CJ Hobgood?

Saw him taking part in one those ASP special vids - 'Champs Table' or something equally gay and he looked way out of his depth - too busy floggin his god bothering 'all round waterman' Salty Sea Dog brand or something...

Over scored in Jordy's heat IMO but the big zaffa looked off his game a bit too...

[Nick Carroll]

well

a) CJ is a super nice guy, honest, straight up, engaged and fearless
b) the Hobgoods are both pro tour legends thanks to ^^ being part of Damien's makeup too
c) CJ has a fantastic style that he's continued to work on and refine over the years so that some moves he does are pretty much fcuken flawless, which few even at pro level can claim
d) he's handled the complexities surrounding his 2001 world title with immense grace and humility
e) he'll talk to anyone and never makes anyone feel bad or less-than, whether they be some rich sponsor guy or the smallest worker bee in catering or whatever

through this lot over the past decade and a half CJ has built up an immense reserve of goodwill across the entire spectrum of the pro tour. That's why you get that impression pearceD.

Plus he has an unironic Florida redneck beard.

[steve shearer]

Inside a heat, at some equally deep level, he has stopped caring as much. In heats where it starts to really matter, he's making mistakes he hasn't made in 20 years. It's a concentration/focus thing, not a surf skill thing.

Hard to believe the most competitive guy of all time, who was visibly and demonstrably pissed off he didn't win the Title the last two years has of a sudden stopped caring as much.

Thats like finding out twelve years after the fact that Chris Mitchell, editor of the Australian didn't really support the Iraq War.

That doesn't ring true to me, not from any of his performances or utterances over this year or the past twenty years.

There's definitely some failure of confidence going on and problems with the equipment.

Slater doesn't just fall to bits in heats the way he has this year without some catastrophic failure somewhere in the matrix.

[alakaboo]

Disagree, Steve.
His post-heat interviews since the Euro leg last year have had a different tone.

[steve shearer]

in what way Boo?