It doesn’t get much better than this. Photo: WSL
Running a surf contest is a difficult thing to do. Mother Nature can be a fickle bitch, and relying on her whims to run a structured event with winners and losers and fairness in judging is pretty much impossible. Despite the cries of almost every single internet WSL basher, I think they’re doing an alright job of it. Yes, the judging could be better, and yes, sometimes heats are run in shitty conditions… but that’s the way the contest cookie crumbles. Sometimes, though, an event runs where everything lines up just right. The Mentawai Pro was one of those events. From start to finish, the waves could not have been any better. Lance’s Right was absolutely perfect for nearly every single heat… but those heats were in a QS event full of people no one knew, so no one heard about it.
This is the first year Lance’s Right has been on the QS roster. As competitors made their way towards finals day, the waves just got better and better. By finals day, it was picture perfect: 4-to-6 feet and tubes all day long. Chris Zaffis, an Australian who not only won the event, but did so in the best waves he’s ever surfed, was understandably happy. “I’m so lost for words,” he said. “I can’t believe I just won a QS in such pumping barrels. I don’t think I’ve ever surfed waves as good as that in my life, so to surf like that in a comp is mind boggling–waves don’t get better than that.”
So why aren’t there more waves like Lance’s Right on the CT? Why are Bells and Rio on the list? Again, it’s a fine line to walk: the people on the thrones at the WSL need not only to run events in the best waves they can, but they need to make sure that people see those waves. That means good waves broadcasted to a lot of people. That means balancing swells, contest windows, butts-on-the-beach, and eyes on the webcast. Like it or not, the WSL doesn’t solely exist to “put the world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves.” It also exists to make make money, because it is a business. It wouldn’t be able to put any surfers in any waves if no one was watching. Don’t like it? Don’t watch pro surfing. And while the powers that be would probably have LOVED to show the world heats with the cream of the crop on the CT, Lance’s Right would have made that difficult. In the first few days of the event, the internet shit the bed. A pain in the ass for a QS contest, to be sure… but an absolute disaster for a CT contest.
The waves at the upcoming Oi Rio Pro won’t be anywhere as good as they were for the Rip Curl Mentawai Pro, but you’ll be able to watch them from your home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, or where ever it is you live. You’ll be able to watch them because the internet in Brazil will not shit the bed. And hey, you never know–Mother Nature might do something crazy and funnel out a few decent days.
