Settle down, John. Photo by Ed Sloane//World Surf League
John John Florence has a trademark. We all recognize it. We all expect it. He’ll do something on a wave almost no other surfer could do and then arrive on the shoulder with his head down, shoulders slightly hunched before turning his body toward the horizon and paddling back out. Nothing to see here. Just possibly the world’s best surfer being the world’s best surfer. No smile. No fist pump. No hoot. At least not from John.
It’s the no-claim claim, perfected through decades of…actually, I don’t know. It’s just John, I guess.
That’s why I perked up in the semifinal matchup between Florence and Gabriel Medina when the North Shore native came out of one tube and instinctively threw his arms up in celebration. Every other surfer on tour would have reacted the same way, but coming from John John Florence, it really stood out.
I wouldn’t call it a claim. He (probably) wasn’t trying to sell it to the judges. It looked like a genuine reaction from an excited surfer who’d just done something remarkable. Still, I’m not sure if I was more surprised to see Florence show an emotional response coming out of a tube or that the judges didn’t get caught up, too, and hand him a 10.
He did it again about an hour later in the final against Italo Ferreira. Again, not a 10. But still very clear that John John Florence, like every other athlete who surfed on Thursday, was relishing the fact that he was surfing perfect Teahupo’o with no restraints. No lineup to battle with. No pecking order to sit through. Just trading off waves with one other guy and seeing who gets the best of it.
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