Fiji 2014

[BA]

this is terrible. the commentators should realise that they dont need to speak the whol darn time as well

They were trying to cover for the poor surfing.

[swvic]

Heat analyser still doesn't have the final up

[ctd]

Anyone know why KFC are running an ad completely based on Sally F but she never says anything? Weird.

[alakaboo]

So it isn't a secret, but both men's and women's WCT events are plagued by

too many lame heats.

They'll have to shed some personnel at some point, or scrap the repercharge rounds.

Imagine if they started at the quarter finals. 7 heats of good surfers in the peak of the swell.

[Nick Carroll]

I was always a fan of Fitzy's slalom system.

16 surfers go on single waves one after another, each getting some standard time in which to catch a wave. In a typical day each surfer would ride six waves. They'd win on the cumulative total of the six waves.

What you get with this system:

- a leader board that evolves through the day. Insanely easy for any spectator to understand what's needed for a surfer to improve his/her position.

- great pressure, mega focus on individual performance.

- everyone competes all day so nobody gets knocked out.

- constant variety of action, never the same guy twice.

- no Priority bullshit issues.

How it works:

Early morning warm-up hour with water cleared.
Surfers have their own colours for easy ID.
You've gotta be in the lineup at least three surfers before your go (to make sure you're in the lineup and ready when your turn happens)
Your individual time starts from the moment the surfer before you stands up on a wave or that surfer's time elapses, whichever happens first.
If you don't catch a wave in the allotted time, you get zero for that go.

It'll never happen, all the surfers at WCT level are committed to one-on-one competition, but it'd be crazy at a great surf location, the system would improve rapidly with the wave quality which kinda doesn't always happen at the moment, where events are at the mercy of the draw to produce great heats.

[steve shearer]

Not enough waves ridden by the surfers that matter.


An Eddie style system where eight surfers in the water for two hours could catch as many waves as they like with a score out of a hundred would bring out the best in confidence surfers who could get on a massive roll ala Occy at Bells, Dane, JJF etc etc.

They surf twice in a day and there is a winner at the end of it.

Watching perfect barrel after perfect barrel roll through today with no riders was infuriating.

I think I saw two or three tubes made. A competent rec surfer with reefbreak chops could have easily topped that in a single heat.

The hype machine is in full swing but a sober assessment of today should start with the fact it was far from a dominant or even competent display from any of the girls.
Courage wasn't lacking but by god they made a meal of it.

[BA]

Fully agree Steve. After they tore up Snapper and Bells, this event was a major step backwards. Dimity Stoyle actually looked embarrassed pulling off one wave that barreled its nuts off behind her.

[black duck]

None of them looked anywhere near comfortable in those conditions.
Men's comp in waves of consequence > massive daylight > a few of the girls.

[buzzy]

I reckon you lot are being a bit harsh. The girls started off fairly skittishly, but the more they surfed the conditions the better they got. Sal was the classic example. She started with a few shouldering mush burgers, moved to some snaps on the shoulder, and ended the day getting great backhand barrels, snapping tight turns on big waves right in the pocket and generally showing an enormous rate of improvement. And next year when they come back and get more practice in waves like this they'll be better again.

As for Zoosea, they suck. The team USA broadcast is awful. It's an international sport with an international audience - surely they could have an international broadcast team? Pottz and Rosy aside (and credit to Turoel he's a pro) it's parochialism central.

As for format I reckon just drop the round 4 three man heat. CJ fell off the tour a few years ago and. O one would surely say he's not world tour worthy? Melling always struggles to make the cut and he rips.

I also agree surfing isn't a main stream sport and there's not much point In pretending to be. Market it to its audience, which is a big and affluent niche.

[swvic]

Sally Fitz and the French chick had a real crack in the semi, but I do agree with the generalities. Most of the waves were pretty bumpy though. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have had the greatest of surfs in those conditions

[Nick Carroll]

look everyone here would have got their arses kicked. Truly until you've had your surfing examined in a half hour WCT heat formet you're living in fantasy land as far as these events go

But the girls have been actively discouraged from learning about Pacific reef waves for many years now by the prior incarnation of the ASP, to whom girls' surfing was just a kind of irritant.

They would have learned heaps at this event and will come back to Fiji very different surfers in future.

[pinhead]

look everyone here would have got their arses kicked. Truly until you've had your surfing examined in a half hour WCT heat formet you're living in fantasy land as far as these events go

But the girls have been actively discouraged from learning about Pacific reef waves for many years now by the prior incarnation of the ASP, to whom girls' surfing was just a kind of irritant.

They would have learned heaps at this event and will come back to Fiji very different surfers in future.

But wouldn't they know they needed more practice in these types waves? Why didn't any of them put in some time before the event?

[el rancho]

Seeing them out in that juice was great. Definitely where chicks surfing needs to go.
Like the antidote to that shithouse French comp a few years ago that got called off due to the fact you can't surf on a lake

[steve shearer]

Carroll the great apologist for high paid mediocrity.

Steph Gilmore is on over a million a year. Fitzgibbon et al are making decent coin.

With that kind of money and looking at the schedule why couldn't they do a few trips to Cloudbreak and get fully dialed into that reef?
Someone getting paid a million bucks a year to be the best surfer in the world should find the time to get that reef dialed, not be in the Final Day with not much clue about where to sit, what waves to catch, making simple errors that an Hawaiian rookie would make like catching the first wave of the set, falling off and getting the rest of the waves on the head. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I find the continuing level of unprofessionalism not just in the girls but the blokes as well just staggering.

Why the hell would you put yourself up there at the "elite" level without the requisite level of preparation?

Blaming the ASP in this instance doesn't cut it as an excuse.

[DucksNuts]

The more professional approach was to focus on the next event, none of which so far resembled anything like an open ocean left reef. The only extra time they may have had to prepare for Cloudbreak was three weeks between Snapper and Margarets in March. I don't know how many good swells came then for Fiji, but pull me up on it if there were.

There's been alot of new faces come in since Women's event was last held at Cloudbreak. If I were them, I'd have been practicing in the scraps they were being thrown in the interim as well

[crabmeat thompson]

Agree with Shep. Just have to wander through instagram and it all becomes apparent. They're on serious money, but at the end of the day they're girls. they go shopping in new york, hole up in paris for 2 weeks nowhere near a freaking ocean on their downtime. They like to go shopping, get their nails and hair done and drink oversized soy caramel frappuccinos then take photos of it. They're always with their non surfing or surfing novice friends from childhood and they always look a million fcuking dollars.

You'll never find them on core surf trips tahiti or fiji or anywhere else where there's serious juice. And this last event showed them up. The closest you'll see is they'll go to playful maldives where it's a combined bikini shoot, or indo or sydney where they can combine shopping first and surfing second.

They rip in the fun stuff but by in large -- with few exceptions -- are in over their head when it gets a little consequential.

It's always been the achilles of the women's tour. Remember tahiti, when only Keala and Layne put up their hand to surf 5-foot teahupo'o? The rest didn't want a bar of it, and the girls tour was nearly cancelled as a result.

Stick the girls in a position to succeed. Big city breaks, points & reefs like snapper & bells where guys can fawn over them, and they'll never be in over their head in the water.

The whole last webcast reeked of apprehension and fear and the sport isn't in a position to take too many more pr hits, imo. More people/ viewers/ fans seem disenfranchised with pro surfing and the sudden americanisation of it, than they are endeared or captivated by it.

for me at least, it's with each passing event this year, it's another nail in its coffin.

[DucksNuts]

Many people don't know this, but the whole event was actually an elaborate cover-story for a bikini shoot on the islands

[Nick Carroll]

look everyone here would have got their arses kicked. Truly until you've had your surfing examined in a half hour WCT heat formet you're living in fantasy land as far as these events go

But the girls have been actively discouraged from learning about Pacific reef waves for many years now by the prior incarnation of the ASP, to whom girls' surfing was just a kind of irritant.

They would have learned heaps at this event and will come back to Fiji very different surfers in future.

But wouldn't they know they needed more practice in these types waves? Why didn't any of them put in some time before the event?

well at the terrible risk of being further outed as a Great Apologist (ha ha shearer not bad) one might recall that the 2014 tour schedule was not published until late December, and the Fiji chick event was not confirmed until January.

Which gave the competitors quite a small window of not very typically fantastic time to chase nonexistent Jan/Feb Cloudbreak, at a time when they would have been training and preparing for Snapper, Margaret River and Bells Beach.

as mentioned I reckon they'll be a lot better prepared for these sorts of waves in 2015.