Let’s just call the Abu Dhabi event what it is, the Italo Ferreira exhibition contest. If the Surf Abu Dhabi owners wanted to entertain a couple of rich clients (god knows they have a few), they’d probably call up Italo to put on the show. Caffeine-fueled and spring-heeled, Italo sees the pool as more of a mini-tramp for his gymnastic endeavours than a wave. He drifts the board beyond the lip then wrenches it back with those dead-lifting quads, he air-drops out of almost every snap, rides the tube like a slinky, tunnelling fox and then tosses rotations high enough to hang with the local sheik’s flying falcons. It’s like the WSL have made a wave for Italo. As his new Nike logo suggests, he ticks all the boxes at the basin and was always going to be hard to beat.
You can’t help but giggle at the irony. The one surfing contest that can chest-beat about its clock-work timing, because of machine-generated waves, is stalled by a wild, natural event. And so it was that a sandstorm swept through the Surf Abu Dhabi basin at the beginning of the men’s quarters; the cruel wind and biting sand intent on reminding everyone exactly where they were, smack bang in the middle of the Arabian desert. Throw in Filipe Toledo’s tangle with a photographer and Leandro Dora coaching Jack Robinson to beat Leandro’s own son, Yago, in the quarters, and suddenly the most monotonous contest in surfing actually had some drama.
As Pat Gudauskas explained when he posted his rodeo flip from the inaugural wave pool event, the key to success in a pool is finding a point of difference on a machine-perfect wave that encourages a ‘mechanical’ approach. Vahine Fierro had it in the quarters with her layback stalls and ultra-deep, folded limb tube rides. She also hit the lip like a striking cobra and possessed enough venom in the attack to take down the bigger opponent, Caroline Marks. Critics were calling for less tube time and more air/attack time, but Vahine made masterful use of the barrel. After this event, other competitors will be less inclined to underestimate Vahine, and although her tube riding was exquisite, she’s proven she shouldn’t be type-cast as simply a hollow-wave specialist.
Jackson Bunch showed he had the pop and fire power in the earlier rounds but in their quarter -final, Rio Waida surfed like he was carving up the dance floor at a Bali night-club – twisting and spinning with sure-footed composure and plenty of zip and power. Meanwhile, the Indonesian cheer squad seemed to be having more fun than the combined crowd and competitors – the vibe just wasn’t quite there amongst the high-paying guests in the distance. I preferred the beer-swilling yahoos from the Lemoore pool. They would probably get booted in Abu Dhabi, but at least you could hear their jeers.
Rio took his disco act all the way to the finals, eclipsing the ever-reliable Ethan Ewing in the semis by taking more risks when it mattered. Perhaps it was the pool’s similarity to Indo perfection that aided his progression, but Rio’s performance was one of the more surprising elements of the event. It’s early days, but the result lands him at number six in the rankings and makes him a contender to give the top five a nudge.
Try as he might, Kanoa Igarashi couldn’t keep up with Italo the Poolzilla in the quarters. In the semis, Robbo stomped his air drop tube stalls, but the wave is not heavy enough for his funnel skills to be a significant point of difference against the likes of Italo. Jack’s aerial repertoire is well developed but alongside Italo’s light-footed leaps, Robbo’s jumps seemed forced. In the final, the lofty challenge of facing Italo led Rio to push it a little too hard and left us with what we might have expected – a victory lap, Rio surfing switch foot with two waves in hand. The limited wave format had killed any chance of a dramatic comeback for Rio. Flags on jerseys had been done away with to avoid any displays of the rainbow pride flag by Tyler Wright, but Italo was going to let us know exactly who he represented as he performed his victory lap, caped in Brazilian colours. Italo seizes the yellow jersey, which he will aspire to control for the remainder of the year. His rail game is back on point, and he has lost some of last season’s choppiness, but it’s too early to call him a title favourite.
As much as Italo is the entertainer, there is no surfer I’d rather watch more at the pool than Caity Simmers. Somehow her floppy-limbed attack adds a degree of surprise that is missing from most of the surfers. Who’d have thought a roundhouse cut-back on the opening section was a meaningful point of difference at the pool, but Caity found the line and made it work. Meanwhile, she rode deeper in the tube than just about any man or woman, and at one point I swear her 1.57 metre frame was almost standing tall as she exited a tube. Caity may not have displayed Italo’s aerial wizardry, but every turn seemed to come at a unique angle and her board was permanently on edge – always a perfect alchemy of flow and technical difficulty. Both Molly Picklum and Gabriela Bryan pushed her all the way with their more powerful approaches, but Caity reminded us that great surfing is largely concerned with the line you draw through a series of connected turns.
The wave pool contest grew on me a little, but I’d still much rather see another event at a regular wave. It’s not like the world doesn’t have enough surf breaks with quality waves in mid-February.
The chief complaint from most fans is the lack of mystique. One of the things that draws us to the ocean is the possibility of what might happen. That element just isn’t there at the wave pool. When we watch pro surfing there are typically two performers – the ocean and the surfer, and as perfect as it may be, the pool just doesn’t measure up against all the tricks the ocean can conjure.
Similarly, although the pool aims to create a level playing field, the result seemed quite predictable. There were surprise performances and inspired moments from the likes of Rio Waida, Gabriela Bryan, Jackson Bunch and Vahine Fierro, but ultimately, it’s going to be very difficult to beat Caity and Italo any time an event is hosted in this pool. One can argue that other waves on tour favour particular surfers, but in the pool, it seems the odds are stacked even more heavily in favour of the precious few.
