“It’s not about surfing. It’s about yourself. It’s not a combat sport. It’s not just competition, it’s joy.”
They’re rare birds, these. Surf contests where there can be no complaints.
I’ll shock you here, surely, with opening by leaning into the words of Kaipo Guerrero.
“It’s not about surfing,” he said. “It’s about yourself. It’s not a combat sport. It’s not just competition, it’s joy.”
And for once – and I do mean once – he was absolutely spot on.
Teahupoo provided the canvas for peak surf contest experience. Competition as art.
And it struck me that this is what we, myself very much included, always get wrong about professional surfing. We feel conflicted by competition. Hundreds of thousands of wave riders see surf competition as the antithesis to their experience.
Endlessly, we grapple with the question: is surfing a sport or an art?
Here, that question was answered. In its best iteration, like we saw on finals day at Teahupoo, it can be a perfect symphony of both.
It was as pure a surf competition as can be imagined at this elite level. Relentless perfect waves testing the limits of the combatants skill and commitment. Each man standing at the threshold of a life’s dedication to surfing, their love laid bare in front of the world.
The competition format adds an extra edge, just another layer of consequence. I would have scant interest in watching a freesurf here. And if it seems a little arbitrary that someone wins or loses, remember human beings are killers at heart. Competition is evolutionary necessity.
The Teahupoo amphitheatre is unmatched. The proximity of the channel must make for one of the most compelling experiences in all of sport. Gladiatorial combat laced with love. Each man wants to win, but equally celebrates the wins of their rivals.
The fans, so close they feel the ferocity of spit in their mouths and hearts, are rapt by performances that will echo throughout the rest of their lives.
I wondered how many of the local kids, floating on boards in the channel, might cite this in years to come.
To be hyper-critical, splitting waves of surfer’s lives by a point in the range between nine and ten at times did seem a little trite. How can you value experience like this? Are any of the multiple nine point plus rides we saw at Teahupoo objectively better than the others? Fuck, give them all tens.
Except they didn’t.
Are they short of YETI coolers? Some judges seemed conscious of this. Only one ten point ride was awarded in men’s competition, to Gabriel Medina, despite several judges including tens in scores where their compatriots saw high nines. Split hairs and little consequence, perhaps, but it would’ve been nice to see a couple more for waves that I’d struggle to imagine bettered.
There were too many superb moments to distil into one comp report. In many ways, a report diminishes it. So how to parse it? It seems wrong to pit one man against another when all were great, so let’s deal with those who stood out to me individually.
First, as appropriate, Kelly Slater.
Honestly, I was pulling for a Slater win. If he was to get the Hollywood ending he deserves, it might have been here. For a moment, it looked like it could be.
In his round of 16 match-up with Ethan Ewing he was ageless. Kaipo wondered if he was a sorcerer. I found myself raising an eyebrow and nodding my head. Somehow, it didn’t sound beyond reason.
He held a 9.73 for a wave that remains one of the best of the entire competition, and holds a worthy place in the canon of his Teahupo’o mastery. But lacking a back up, he was behind Ethan Ewing.
With two minutes on the clock both men had lost their boards and were being plucked from the maelstrom by the Tahitian Water patrol.
There were just 59 seconds on the clock when Kelly retrieved a new board from his caddy, Glen Micro Hall, and began to sprint paddle back to the line-up.
At 22 seconds the volume in the channel started to swell as a wave reared. The kind of wave that Kelly has seemed to conjure for decades in crucial moments.
At 15 seconds he stood up, threaded a small but technical tube and kicked out as the horn blew.
He’d only needed a 4.44, and there was no question it was enough.
The fairytale shimmered before our eyes and his.
But in the end, it was just a shimmer. Kelly would lose to Ramzi Boukhiam in the quarter final in a heat where no-one had cause for complaint. Slater held the lead for most of it, but Boukhiam’s 9.80 late in the match-up was deserved and decisive.
Boukhiam was a clear stand out yet again.
“Ramzi legit. Already a vet. Favourite rookie in some time,” I noted early in the comp. I think I’ve written more or less that exact note at nearly every comp so far.
Obviously he’s not strictly a rookie, having been injured before Pipe on what would’ve been his rookie season. But he’s nothing if not an anomaly. At thirty years old and surfing his first full year on Tour, by logic he should be a prototypical journeyman, but that couldn’t seem further from the truth. There’s a composure about him, a panache. Not to mention the deep aura of a man who has made love to a thousand beautiful women and broken the hearts of a thousand more.
Another man with the capacity to catch the heart of guard and blow it open was and always will be Gabriel Medina. His performances at Teahupoo were once again transcendent. He did not win the competition, but for me he was the standout on a day when everyone stood out.
Two near-perfect heat totals of 19.83 and 18.96 perhaps evidence this claim, but really you need to witness the intangible power of Medina in waves like this.
He was perfect. His scores should have been. His best waves could not have been improved. They were critical, they were technical, and they were stylish. A point I’ve often made but bears repeating is that remaining critics of Medina’s style are made to look like dilettantes on days like today.
The one shadow of disappointment was that his semi match-up with Florence was not the iconic heat it perhaps should have been. But that notion should be evaporated in the context of the day. And it was nearly very different.
After a slight lull and a start where both men paddled each other a little too deep, the heat was restarted. Medina’s eventual first wave was a whisper away from perfection. Just losing his balance on the exit, he was dragged over the reef and lost in the melee of whitewater as the next wave broke. The Tahitian Water Patrol seized him, seemingly from underwater. Clearly dazed but smiling still, his vest was round his shoulders and his back bloodied.
Florence won and justly so. His eighteen point total, including a near-perfect 9.77, exhibited the sort of mastery we expect from John in conditions like this, but in a way that almost demeans his skill.
Everyone is impressed when John performs, but no-one is surprised. As a competition surfer, this has often been an Achilles Heel not of his own making. When you’ve long been anointed the Messiah, no-one is shocked when you perform god-like acts, but only when you don’t.
However, sometimes the weight of expectation is enough. It would be remiss of me not to mention wildcard Mihimana Braye, whom I believe deserved the score in the final seconds of his match-up with Florence that would’ve turned it in his favour. But John squeaked through by just 0.14pts. Perhaps it was too close to call, or perhaps people just wanted to see more of John surfing.
But in the end he lost the final to Ferreira by less than a point, even though that differential doesn’t reflect the authority Italo stomped on the heat from the beginning.
An 8.93 and an 8.77 on his first two waves left Florence chasing throughout. John very nearly got it with a 9.33 near the end, but it would’ve been theft.
Italo Ferreira was in a rhythm that we haven’t seen since the heady days of 2019. The days when he never looked like falling, just as today. He was perhaps not anyone’s pick to win here, but perhaps his credentials in heavy waves have been forgotten in the past few years of tweaked out interviews, roid rages and airs into the abyss.
Today he was calm. All that speed and stray voltage was contained and unleashed at exactly the right moments to give him command over the most beautiful terrifying wave in the world, and it was gratifying to see him back on top, happy again.
John Florence heads to El Salvador as the number one, Italo jumps eleven places to number five. Suddenly, both look like they could take another world title, even at Trestles.
Teahupoo 2024 was a salivating prelude to the Olympics as well as a contest for the ages, and that’s felt like a long time coming.
And although the vagaries of weather and the universe are such that these days are seldom seen, that seems appropriate to the surf experience at large.
Is it worth pursuing something even if the moments of beauty are so rare they might as well be dreams?
Today, I think yes. Tomorrow this may fade.
But today. Today it’s enough.