Click on the image and scroll ahead to the 7:25 mark for the interview. Image: Screenshot/WSL
We’ve all been there. It’s early in the morning and we rushed to get in the water. Drank too much coffee too quickly, didn’t spend enough time letting things run their course. The waves are firing, the wetsuit goes on faster than a greased pig, and we’re out there, bobbing out the back and waiting for a set wave. Then, disaster.
The belly rumbles. Things begin to shift. “Oh, no,” you think. “OH, NO.” It’s a poop, of course, and there’s no escaping it. You have a few options: paddle in, sprint to the nearest bathroom, and do your thing. Or there’s the aqua-dump, a much under-utilized and very disgusting way to poop. Now imagine you’re in that situation just a few minutes before your heat starts, and you’ll find yourself in the shoes of one Griffin Colapinto. He, like the smart person that he is, chose the latter option.
“I paddled out and there was 10 minutes left for the heat to start,” he told Rosie Hodge in his post-heat (and poop) interview. “I just had a coffee and I had to go number two super bad. I got my 3/2 full suit on. I paddle out the back, rip my jersey off, take my suit down, drop the kids off and I’m like, ‘Oh no there’s like two minutes until my heat starts.’ Got all my shit on and then when the heat started, I was filled up with water. I was all scared I was going to stand up and be filled up with a bunch of water in my legs.”
Anyway, despite the pre-heat drama, Colapinto went on to win his heat—and if he told Kanoa Igarashi and Soli Baley what he’d just done, we’d say that’s a damn good heat strategy. Click here and scroll to the 7:25 mark to watch the interview.
If you’d like to learn more about aqua-dumping, we’ve got you covered. Here are some rules you need to know and here is a general outline.
