Tyler Larronde was swallowed up by this Pe’ahi monster. Is it the Wipeout of the Year?
Wiping out is an eternal piece of the surf equation. Like learning to ride a bike, falling on your face (or on other parts of your body) is a given. Only in surfing, most of us have a tendency to keep pushing our limits the longer we do this, letting those wipeouts get gnarlier along the way.
This leads to a pretty funny dynamic within our awkward little community of people around the globe where, unlike in other sports (or almost anything else in life), the heaviest wipeouts of them all are the ones we celebrate the most. It’d be a dubious honor to be on the receiving end of the NFL’s gnarliest tackle, the Premier League’s worst own-goal — you get the picture — but it’s a grand badge of honor worth wearing as a surfer.
The Northern Hemisphere’s winter is coming to a close soon and who knows how many XXL days are left at Nazaré, Jaws, Mavs, or any of the other northern hemi big wave spots? We’re not going to say it’s time to start tallying everything and wrapping up the 2019 Wipeout of the Year entries, but the odds are certainly in favor of us having already seen the heaviest wipeout of the 2018/2019 big wave season. The WSL’s been sprinkling some of its heaviest submissions online and here are a handful (nine, to be exact) of entries for this year’s awards that should make you cringe. If they don’t, check your pulse.
1. Paige Alms Jumps Off the Ledge of a Jaws Bomb
2. Eli Olson Carries the Literal Weight of Maverick’s On His Shoulders
3. Jaws: 1, Trevor Carlson: 0
4. Fabiano Wainberg Should Have Been a WWE Wrestler
5. Just a Reminder that Kai Lenny Is Human
6. Wilem Banks Gets Hammered at Maverick’s
7. Lucas Chianca at Jaws. Nope.
8. Jaws Eats Tyler Larronde Alive
9. Caio Vaz Is Lucky to Be Alive
