Billabong Pro Teahupoo 2014

peru is a whole nother beast then chopes.

 

CJ claims when its called for. Medina claims all.the.time. i bet he claims his morning dumps.

 

lmao. I need what you're smoking.

 

Like to see someone attempt and succeed this wave on a longboard

 

That was an amazing contest. Wow. If Kelly had gotten out of that second to last wave, it was a 10, contest over. Ball game. It could have gone either way. I felt like Medina thought that he lost when they were waiting for the score. Very close.

I definitely think that in those close calls moving forward, the ASP is not going to give Kelly the same treatment that he has had in the past. I think they are really trying to prepare for his absence and trying to get some of these young guys up the rankings. Like, back in the day, when Andy and Kelly would surf, even if they both got a 2 9's each in the round, at the end of the day, they would give Kelly a 9.0 and a 9.1. Kings treatment. I don't think that will continue any more.

Great event though. Best contest in years.

 

for sure. you have to take into account that ZoSea just took over the tour. they're trying to package and market this like the core 4 sports in the US. they have the "commentary desk", all the stats etc.

i absolutely agree they're investing in the guys that are going to be pieces of the tour for the next 10+ years and that's not Kelly.

 

bonga perkins has shredded the place on a longboard. i'm also pretty sure Laird only SUP's at chopes now too.

 

Yeah. Laird and Raimana are always on SUPs there

 

I agree it makes sense... But I don't think it happened here. Scores seemed to be consistent for the entire event. Only wave I thought could have been scored higher was JJF's bomb against Kelly. He could have got a 10. But that goes directly against your theory

 

Yeah, I see the ASP marketing machine moving back towards OZ and Brazil. OZ has the biggest surf market on the planet. They consider surfing their national sport. We watch the NFL, they watch surfing.

I think the Mainland US and Hawaiian markets are kinda maxed out anyway. They will continue to produce great surfers, but we have been over saturated and the whole story of "The Kid from Florida who took the surfing world by storm" is played out. I hope Kelly continues the tour for 5 more years. I just don't think that will happen. I am looking forward to finding one of these young bucks to start rooting for. I just don't feel like any of these guys can really "do it all" yet.

It's funny though, some people love Medina, some not so much. But it's like earlier in this thread, people were saying that he looked uncomfortable in huge surf.... Yet... He just won Chopes. So, I was also under the impression that he would not be able to compete in the SF and Finals with the big dogs, but sure enough, he beat the king himself in the largest contest surf that the ASP has seen since 2002. So, even if Medina looked a little shaky at times, he went out, tamed the beast and took the trophy. He just beat the best 33 other guys on the planet, in the biggest surf any of them have competed in. Impressive. He had to fight his way through some serious waves to take that crown. It's not like the kid just won the US Open in waist high crap. He just won Chopes in 10-15 freight trains.

 

disagree. I took medium sized waves the whole comp.

 

Yeah, they were consistent. And I agree that the scores were legit. I mean, a .03 is a heck of a way to lose, but they got it right.

I think the reason any of us feel differently, is simply because of the timing and the drama and the way it went down. With like 4 minutes left, Kelly took that bomb. Had he made that, it was over. So, then there is only like 2 minutes left, and Kelly just paddles back out like a madman. I have no clue how he just took position back from Medina. But with what, less than a minute left, a perfect set comes through and kelly takes off deep, and put up an insane wave. It was just the timing and the drama. The sets were coming in minutes apart, but right when Kelly needed it, the sets just came in back to back.... You gotta admit, when Kelly got that last wave, you were probably thinking, did that just happen? We were all trying to break the wave down, justify a score. I mean, all those waves are so critical, so huge, it's splitting hairs when a guy loses or wins by .03. When nothing under a 9 is a decent score, you know things are going to be tight. And like I said, I think Medina thought he lost. He didn't see the wave or what happened with Kelly, but with the crowd roaring and stuff, and who knows what kelly said to him after he paddled back out. But they both looked like they had no idea.

 

I assume you meant "he" =) . But yeah, I guess all I am saying is, slice it how you want to. Maybe it was all strategy. Whatever he did, it worked. Save the best for last, whatever. In situations like that, I am sure the kid was playing chess out there. Some guys probably look at it like, they don't care who they are surfing against, they are surfing against the wave itself. Going for broke every time. Some other guys surf against the competition. When they know they have their guy beat, they pump the breaks. When you are doing multiple heats in a day, you want to surf smart, not hard.

I agree that it's not as impressive to watch a guy pick off the smaller waves all day. But he was smart. He took out every single guy he needed to, including Kelly. Maybe he was being timid, but a guy that is that good, I have to give him the benefit and think that a lot of that was part of the plan. Go big when you have to. Go smart when you know you are going to advance.

 

yeah. that brings me back to my original post. More weight needs to be giving to wave selection especially in heavy wave events.

 

Without a doubt. I think those first fews heats are kind of hard to guage. Like, I think that the day 1 scored were generally lower than the rounds yeterday, but I think some of those day one waves were way more critical.

And in a contest like Chopes, size and wave selection is really all there is too it. With style being a distant 3rd factor. But, these guys weren't even turning. Its just paddle in, giant barrel and spit out. So, wave size and how deep you get are really the only things that matter. I do like that they are dropping scores for rail grabs and stuff. But yeah, I guess I would have to agree with you, because if Medina did sneak around and chess match his way through the contest, avoiding the biggest waves, then yes, there is something inherently wrong with the way the scoring was going. Unless he was just matched up against guys that were laying eggs, but that didn't happen.

 

i think there is a conscience push for a narrative that showcases oz/brazillian surfers. You're spot on with the overt saturation of the markets in the US and OZ and totally right that Oz treats surfers like national heroes. I remember after Occy won the world title there were billboards all over oz with him on it.


in regards to medina and huge surf. he wasn't taking off on any of the bomb sets until the final. the entire contest he sat on the west bowl and picked off those mid size runners. he was able to maximize tube time but they weren't nearly as heavy as any wave in the JJF/Slater SF heat.

he looks so stiff and uncomfortable in the really big ones tho in the final. like i said before, the one really big one he got in the final he was full on linebacker on his board, white knuckle the whole way. JJF looked like he was taking naps in barrels as big. i don't know it's form v style and i'll always pick style over form.

also, the god stuff is so incredibly irritating. tim tebow proved that no matter how many red states the USA has, no one wants to hear that gunk all the time. i'd venture to guess its the same in oz.

i wonder if ZoSea/ASP is going to tell him to knock it off with that and maybe learn some actual english not lines out of the post-surf-heat cliche book.


rosy asked a great hard question right after his SF heat and he spewed cliches. i hate that. you're fake.

 

the close out Owen pulled into was heavier than literally every single wave medina caught the entire event. why are we rewarding timidity?

additionally i think style is EVERYTHING in these waves. like i said before, just making it and white knuckling it thru these things was cool circa 03' Gotcha Pro. Now you have to be steezy and have big balls.

 

More then likely they have one criteria for all contests versus tweaking the judging for each event.

 

no this for sure has a tweaked judging criteria. Chopes, Pipe and Fiji are "barrel" comps and portugal and france sometimes straight barrel comps.

 

well, maybe there was a conspiracy after all.....