Fiji 2014

[buzzy]

In terms of preparation I'd make two points. First, you prepare to beat your competitors. If few of the competitors are getting extended pre event training at the venue then in order to secure an advantage you don't need to arrive an awful lot earlier than your peers to have an advantage, and ergo be well prepared. In any event, with the event announced in January, with Tavarua and Namogu notoriously hard to book into, with 4 events already this year it will have been hard to find a place and the time. And sure a Steph or a Sal earns good bucks but what does Dimity Stoyle or Pauline Ado earn? Do they just pluck the magic money tree to fund the extended short notice trip to Fiji? Secondly, some competitors did come early. I thought I heard Sal was there a couple of weeks prior. Malia picked up an opening a few days/week earlier.

It's true enough some competitors were exposed. Lakey. Carissa. They're the two notables for me. But for many others their surfing really blossomed over he course of the event. Sal just grew and grew that final day. Steph surfed amazingly. Bianca looked absolutely fantastic and Cloudbreak the final day. Tyler charged as everyone would have expected. Malia was super impressive. And it's fair to say that one surfer we watched improve enormously over the course of even one heat let alone a day in Sal had been one of the ones who went early to prepare.

I think it's ungenerous to be overly critical of the girls in their first open wave contest in a decade. I don't think it's at all condescending to recognise things as they are. The world tour didn't previously require competitors to excel in these sorts of waves so they practised for the conditions they did compete in. Now the playing field has changed. What it showed was really very interesting and an insight into the head space of some competitors.

[brett68]

this 'getting better next time' stuff doesn't wash with me - Fiji being a semi-regular family holiday destination and being mid-40's, I've been to CB a few times and think I surf it now the same as the first time I did (or maybe I'm just a kook who doesn't learn) - the amount of Indo trips they do should've given them enough of a headstart anyway
As has been said, it all comes down to girls not wanting it as much and being without the macho peer-pressure to charge it - I see it at my kids sport where the girls put personal safety in front of say getting the ball, whereas the boys just want to get that ball or make that tackle no matter what - at the age my daughter is at if you have any guts you are a huge step ahead of the pack no matter what the sport

[alakaboo]

The girls I played soccer, AFL and waterpolo with were terrifying, they were out for blood.
I guess you had to be back then to stick with it.

And it's fair to say that one surfer we watched improve enormously over the course of even one heat let alone a day in Sal had been one of the ones who went early to prepare.

Anyone else think that Sal was held back a lot by her boards?
She seemed to get a lot better once she snapped a couple, don't know if she went up in length

[tootr]

Thats a point, are the girls doing that crazy short thing like some of the guys? (Relatively speaking) Or were they on say 6'2" 6'4" or whatnot in those waves

[steve shearer]

Hang on we're talking 6-8ft cloud break here not twenty fcucking foot chopes...surf that is within reach of any competent rec surfer.
The errors were errors of preparation etc etc.

Anyone thinking girls can't surf waves like these at a competent level is just indulging in dinosaur sexist thinking. Look around boys it's 2014.
Andy is right though : girls have getting paid on factors other than surfing performance. Crossroads time now though. ASP needs them to draw eyeballs for their surfing prowess.

[Beerfan]

it's condescending and patronising to the women to say: "öh well, poor dears, they'll get better next time, at least they had a go"" If it wasn't for the mean old ASP they would have come over sooner and got their specs in.

wtf! These aren't girls challenging for a meat tray for second place at the local boardriders.

Of course they will do better next time but they should be assessed on the merits of this years performance justly and fairly.

Analogy: Someone paid for me to go to Sydney a couple weeks ago and do some filming at the RNSH. I'd never been there before. Before I went I found out what I was filming, who I was filming, what they wanted, what they expected as a deliverable.
I downloaded maps of the hospital so I knew where and when I was supposed to be and how to get there.
I specced out the rooms as soon as I got there and figured out where the best place was to locate cameras, microphones etc etc.

When the time came to roll tape I had tested my gear and was confident it was working properly. I was able to monitor it and be confident I was getting the results I wanted.

Now, imagine if at the end of that I flubbed it, missed something critical and said to the principals : "Ah, I fcuked it up a bit, did a fairly ordinary job, but hey, I'll be better next year", at least I tried.

Exactly. Every job has minimum standards of excellence or competence required. It's up to the individual concerned to develop those competencies, not come up with excuses.

I doubt any pro surfers contract has a minimum competition standard, as in rankings wise. Any let's face it, their employers are global retailers, most listed on the stock exchange. If girl ( or bloke ) x was making them huge amounts of money by selling clothes, they are hardly going to sack them for not winning competitions.


Think about ks. Sure he got paid millions over the years by quik, but over that time how much money did quik earn by having him attached to the brand?.

[spork]

From my perspective it was more the lack of backhand surfing skills that stood out. That and Sally with her bum out style makes me wince. Are there any other lefts on the women's tour?

[steve shearer]

Carroll knows more but my understanding is you are wrong on that score.

[alakaboo]

Now, imagine if at the end of that I flubbed it, missed something critical and said to the principals : "Ah, I fcuked it up a bit, did a fairly ordinary job, but hey, I'll be better next year", at least I tried.

There's always politics.

[Shoulder hopper]

Yes I have to agree that the girls don't and probably won't get the aggressive go for anything anytime attitude that the men have, but if they get the time in the water at the heavier breaks in due course some will definitely stand up and be counted. I know from watching some girls in Indo that after a few days in pumping waves a couple of girls were taking off further inside than most of the blokes and pig dogging as good as any good men I've seen. Maybe not as deep or as good as top men pros but a lot better than most out there.
It's a shame Courtney Conlogue wasn't there because she is one I know can pull in backhand.

Another thing the girls have to worry about too is the pressure the public & sponsors put on them to be good looking at all times to make their money. So they are concerned about getting smashed up and scarred on the reef and losing some of their marketability because they might not be as pretty as they are expected to be.( Hopefully Niki van Djik will not have lasting scars from her encounter with the reef)
Might be able to pull in but ugly as sin ain't gonna cut it in this day and age of social media driven sponsorship deals and I'm certain that's in the back of most of the girls minds at some time.
Also the way that we as men tend to be with our daughters, when they fall or have something go wrong we are more concerned about them ,than treat them like boys with a " come on get up and have a go ya sook" which isn't much good for making the girls more gung-ho.
Basically with what they had to work with and the amount of time most have had in those situations I think they did a damn fine job!

[Beerfan]

Carroll knows more but my understanding is you are wrong on that score.

I'll put it another way. If billaquik signed a young promising girl, let's call her Helena granchard. If she failed to meet her surfing/competition criteria/kpi but the companies clothing sales went through the roof because she looked great in a bikini, do you think they'd get rid of her?.

[ctd]

I'll put it another way. If billaquik signed a young promising girl, let's call her Helena granchard. If she failed to meet her surfing/competition criteria/kpi but the companies clothing sales went through the roof because she looked great in a bikini, do you think they'd get rid of her?.

Would or could - different things

I am pretty sure that they 'could' get rid of her if (for example) she fell off the tour. Or did something stupid to 'affect' the brand, or any number of other things. This is standard in sporting/media contracts - this is the legal position.

Whether they 'would' get rid of her if she was selling a lot of clothes is a different issue. Whether they enforce their legal rights is a commercial decision.

[BA]

Blanchard got heat totals of 3.4 and 4. That was her event. They're not sponsoring her for results.

Lakey Peterson also failed to get a wave in her heat. Not even a take-off.

[buzzy]

I reckon Alana Blanchard and Rip Curl would have been better advised to have semi retired from the tour at the end of last year. She proved she could mix it with the best at a few events last year, and hasn't looked remotely interested this year. Her "brand" is being damaged. Then again, her brand is she's hot - I doubt her twitter followers or the folk watching the wettie she's promoting really care about her tour ranking. Grumpy middle aged blokes don't buy bikinis, Westerly Windina excepted.

But I really don't understand your point Steve Shearer. You say it's 2014 (agreed so far) you say girls are quite capable of surfing Cloudbreak, as they did. But then you complain about their performances because Sal sticks her bum out, Tyler didn't drag her bum enough, or whatever it is that displeases you. In 2014 this was the best performance level of the best female surfers on earth at this venue. If they surfed it an extra week I'm sure they'd be twice as good. It is what it is.

I'll say another thing. It might be that Laura Enever lost her way at Cloudbreak. Then again more than any other competitor she suffers predictable and regular mind farts. She's rarely capable of completing even the softest waves, has a habit of picking the wrong ones, going over the falls etc. maybe I watch too much women's surfing but her performance at Fiji is consistent with what she does everywhere else. To put a complete heat together and rip is the exception for Laura. Sorry Laura.

I personally congratulate them for what they did do. A lot of them overcame some personal fears and ended up surfing really well. A couple fell I a bit of a hole. I'd prefer to dwell on the positives.

[pirate_agenda]

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.

if they're so bad, and its so easy making big money, surely someone better would come and beat the and take all of their easy money??

[damo666]

Analogy: Someone paid for me to go to Sydney a couple weeks ago and do some filming at the RNSH. I'd never been there before. Before I went I found out what I was filming, who I was filming, what they wanted, what they expected as a deliverable.
I downloaded maps of the hospital so I knew where and when I was supposed to be and how to get there.
I specced out the rooms as soon as I got there and figured out where the best place was to locate cameras, microphones etc etc.

When the time came to roll tape I had tested my gear and was confident it was working properly. I was able to monitor it and be confident I was getting the results I wanted.

Yeah, that analogy is just not working for me Steve. Are you suggesting that none of the girls thought about what was going to be required to win Fiji before arriving? (what boards to bring, what they wil be required to do, what the conditions would possibly be like etc?).

There's a BIG difference between not being prepared, and simply not having the skills required. The second one is also not something you can fix just by having a bit of a think about it beforehand.

[Nick Carroll]

Carroll knows more but my understanding is you are wrong on that score.

I'll put it another way. If billaquik signed a young promising girl, let's call her Helena granchard. If she failed to meet her surfing/competition criteria/kpi but the companies clothing sales went through the roof because she looked great in a bikini, do you think they'd get rid of her?.

well why dont you ask the same question re Dane.

there is almost no way to track sales linked to athlete sponsorship, unless a sales product is directly related to the athlete (ie Air Jordan Nike). the market research can only make vague connections related to apparent influence. Indeed companies tend to run like rabbits from deals that connect athletes directly to product, I mean there's a downside for them too in the deal, what if they discover the athlete is more important than the brand, oh dear.

All competitive surfers sign contracts which contain significant incentives based on rankings performance. Incentives they can't afford to ignore. All such contracts contain review clauses that give the parties a way out if various minimum performance criteria aren't met.

There's a profound disconnect for many men when it comes to sponsorship of women surf athletes. They think the women are supposed to appeal to them on the basis of their appearance. Men aren't the market, women are. Nike is the most successful female athlete marketer in history because they focus on the athlete, not the arse.

Surf companies aren't in Nike's league.

[pinhead]

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.

I checked out the Intsies for a couple of the top girls and it looks to me like they're all working hard for the marketing depts of their sponsors. (I didn't look at Alana's as I was worried my wife might come into the room) Plenty of shots of surfing interspersed with them dressed up in their sponsors gear with the odd pet/family/boyfriend shot.