If you kept up with the impact Swatch Nines has had on the progression of freestyle skiing and snowboarding, then you understand the potential it brings to surfing. Our sports evolve, our athletes push boundaries, and we gradually see performance reach new heights that seemed impossible five years ago, a decade ago, and so on. And the Nines are are a perfect setting to spark all of that.
Swatch Nines is not a contest. It’s not really anything other than an opportunity for athletes to get creative and go big in a giant expression session. Like I said, the concept has brought a lot to freestyle skiing and snowboarding by simply providing a massive platform and curating athletes up for the task of pushing one another. Who knows what we’ll look back on when pointing that same lens at surfing in a decade?
I imagine we’ll at least finally have a name for whatever insanity Matt Meola introduced over the weekend.
Meola’s major highlight was just one moment within the larger mayhem of the weekend in Waco, though. Hughie Vaughan stomped out an unbelievable Matrix-like backflip. There was a crane, a rail, and a mini pipe suspended over the wave pool. There were a lot of moments that ended with people exclaiming “What the f***?” There was a lot to take in.
