Ditch the golf, put surfing in the Olympics instead, and I’d be stoked
VIEW FROM THE SOFA: Pipe Masters, worldsurfleague.com
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Your support makes all the difference.There are some who would love to see surfing included in the Olympic Games. Imagine it: the revered institution invaded by a bunch of shaggy folk with flannel shirts and sun-bleached hair, saying stuff like “stoked” all over the speeches and anthems. What would the equestrians think? Or the modern pentathletes? The golfers?
In fact, surfing would fit nicely in the Olympics – if it were presented as this week’s Pipe Masters is. The contest is the climax to the World Surfing League season and no fewer than six surfers are still in with a shout of the world title.
The venue is Banzai Pipeline, an amphitheatre of a break on the north shore of Hawaii’s Oahu island.
The spot is made for television – the waves break a few yards offshore and have a habit of rearing up in A-framed perfection. Add that to the golden sands and tropical weather (squalls passed through repeatedly on Friday’s round two, making spectacular rainbows on the horizon) and you have a winning formula.
Of course, the action must live up to the location – and with that the packaging of the coverage must come under scrutiny. And yes, the trio of presenters were dressed in shirts that looked like they had lost a bet, but hey, it was Hawaii – if there is any place where you can be excused for wearing an offcut of a tablecloth, it is here.
The commentators, Martin Potter – a British-born former world champion surfer (not that you’d know he had been born in Northumberland, with that Aussie twang) – and Joe Turpel were also adept at that necessary skill of filling empty space with chat. Because there was a lot of downtime. Minutes passed while surfers bobbed up and down in the calm water, waiting for a perfect wave.
Potter took the lulls as an opportunity to give us a personal history lesson of Pipeline and its fierce localism. “When I first surfed here, Dane Kealoha was the man,” he recalled. “When he paddled for a wave, you wouldn’t look at him. Nobody would. And when he called you into a wave, you would take it, whether you thought you would make it or not.” The anticipated “kids these days...” coda, sadly, did not materialise.
And when the competitors did catch waves, both “Pottz” and Turpel were often reduced to disconnected phrases to convey the action. One ride by Australian Taj Burrow was accompanied by “air drop... super-critical... oh... barrel... exit!” Which was perfectly clear if you happened to be watching.
In fact, the entire day’s action made sense – each 40-minute knockout heat between two surfers overlapped so that for most of the time there were four riders in the water, each getting marks out of 10 for their rides – and even if you were unfamiliar with terms like “cutback” and “foam ball”, there was the hypnotic, metronomic breaking of waves to put a laconic grin on your face.
So, surfing in the Olympics? Bring it on. As long as the event takes place in Hawaii: Pipeline, for preference. And make sure it is in winter, when the swells are frequent. And if it ousts golf from the roster, all the better.
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