The Love Affair Lives On.

Andy Irons showing a glimpses of his former self. Pic: ASP

Surfing contests have had a bit of a bum wrap in recent years. Between rebel tour rumours, collectives of moderness, year-long skunkings (’07), world title runaways and the rise of the almighty blogger it seems like everyone’s become a critic and Margaret and David are giving this one no stars.

My relationship with pro surfing began in the golden years… 2002 was the first time I watched a surf contest and cared – it was also the year of Andy’s first title and the beginning of the best rivalry pro surfing had seen in over a decade – and my love affair burned bright with passion from day one.

But I must admit in recent years that even I, one of comp surfings’ biggest fans, was becoming tired of this mistress. I think it was ’07 that first put a strain on the relationship. That year the lady of the sea refused to even tempt us with a glimpse of her beauty, let alone invite us between the four-to-six-foot sheets. And it doesn’t take long for a man starved of satisfaction to start looking elsewhere for his fix.

But all that was before I paddled out to Snapper this morning. Now you’d think that sharing (now that’s a euphemism) an already dog-eat-dog lineup with 20 of the best wave catchers in the world would only serve to harden my distaste for the competitive surfing format.

But instead the opposite happened. Floating around watching twenty of the best wave riders in the world, I realised that it doesn’t get any better than this. Honestly, where else can you watch that many of the world’s best surfers in one place, at one of the world’s best waves, under pressure, in the flesh or live on the web or now on Fuel TV (how good is that!)?

Sure a surf DVD might seem like it gives you more hi-fi moves per minute but these are synthesised collections of years of surfing, hundreds of hours of floating around doing nothing and dozens of failed attempts. And by the time you see that turn on your screen the event took place in a time and place removed from you by months and miles. How can you really relate to that?

What about a superstar freesurf session? How often are sitting on the sand in Bali when a dozen of the surfing’s finest rock up and start trying their hardest to outdo each other. There’s a reason they make them into surf DVDs.

What about blogs where you can upload the footage the same day? It’s still edited, there’s no real pressure to perform, no immediate consequences for that throwaway.

Sure, not all of the world tour stops can be touched by the hands of us mere mortals, the cost of a trip to Chopes will hurt more than the reef rash you get out there, but most of them we can. And no matter where you live in Australia we’ve got two of them mere hours away (by plane if need be). On day one of this year’s Quiksilver Pro joe-average-gets-out-there-when-life-work-and-the-kids-let-him could’ve hi-fived the world champion as he rode the Snapper Rocks foamball in a heat. It just doesn’t get better than that.

Today could’ve been one of those days where the critics lick their lips as they look up ‘shit’ in their online thesaurus. The second half of a losers round, run in wind affected waves, on a rainy Tuesday is hardly the dream tour at its dreamiest. But still the crowds turned up, people logged on at work, and I was glued to the Fuel screen while I “kept my laptop out of the rain”. And for that we were treated with flashes of brilliance as a big-boned Hawaiian defeated a big-chinned Aussie, an older fighter knocked out a young contender, and a past champion rose from the ashes to “nearly score an eight.”

It was a good day.

And surf contests still rule.

By Fletch

QUIKSILVER PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 3 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Jadson Andre (BRA)
Heat 2: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. Adrian Buchan (AUS)
Heat 3: Tom Whitaker (AUS) vs. Chris Davidson (AUS)
Heat 4: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Owen Wright (AUS)
Heat 5: Bobby Martinez (USA) vs. Andy Irons (HAW)
Heat 6: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Luke Stedman (AUS)
Heat 7: Dean Morrison (AUS) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)
Heat 8: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Brett Simpson (USA)
Heat 9: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Dusty Payne (HAW)
Heat 10: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) vs. Kekoa Bacalso (HAW)
Heat 11: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Daniel Ross (AUS)
Heat 12: Dane Reynolds (USA) vs. Jeremy Flores (FRA)
Heat 13: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Luke Munro (AUS)
Heat 14: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. Mick Campbell (AUS)
Heat 15: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 16: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Tiago Pires (PRT)

ROXY PRO GOLD COAST ROUND 3 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Coco Ho (HAW) vs. Amee Donohoe (AUS)
Heat 2: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) vs. Bruna Schmitz (BRA)
Heat 3: Paige Hareb (NZL) vs. Rebecca Woods (AUS)
Heat 4: Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) vs. Tyler Wright (AUS)
Heat 5: Silvana Lima (BRA) vs. Lee Ann Curren (FRA)
Heat 6: Chelsea Hedges (AUS) vs. Rosanne Hodge (ZAF)
Heat 7: Melanie Bartels (HAW) vs. Jessi Miley-Dyer (HAW)
Heat 8: Sofia Mulanovich (PER) vs. Carissa Moore (HAW)