Billabong Pro Tahiti The Outsider: Prologue

In: Billabong Pro Tahiti by Steve Shearer 12 Comments Fri 20th Aug '10

Tags: dane reynolds , The Outsider , Teahupoo , Billabong , Andy Irons

Courage is not a defining characteristic of the noble sport of Pro Surfing. The Sport has had no Waterloo, save the winter of 1976, when an armada of Hawaiians lined the shores of Sunset Beach with the intention to violently repudiate the Napoleon of the nascent sport, Rabbit Bartholomew.

They won that battle but lost the war; surfing moved from an essentially pre-commercial, aristocratic activity into the marketplace. Resistance to this fact is both intellectually bankrupt and morally futile; no amount of weepy-eyed nostalgia or deliberate, disabling retroism will bring back the pre-commercial Nirvana.

The future is crowds and the future is now. The question is: what kind of crowds will they be? We'll return to this question shortly.

The ASP is poised for an aggressive new phase of expansion as the global recession recedes and economies recover. The folksy era of Rabbit's Dream Tour is over. New personnel on the ASP board are career suits with backgrounds in Formula One and Hollywood. They speak in press releases, and words like 'global expansion' and 'athlete' roll easily off their tongues.

Now, surfers like Andy Irons and Dane Reynolds may be artists, wizards or whatever but they sure as shit ain't athletes. The expansion will mirror the rebalancing of the world economy with young vibrant countries like Brazil poised for greater dominance.

As a Sport surfing has always struggled for legitimacy, both in the wider world and amongst surfers themselves. Common attitudes range from mild indifference to outright hostility. Ambivalence is a common trait with serious surfers unable to resist the emotional and aesthetic impact of witnessing sublime performances from the likes of Slater, Reynolds, Parkinson and others.

At its best, Pro Surfing has a transcendant quality that belongs aboriginally to the greatest sports moments or dramatic arts performances. More often than not, it is turgid and meaningless. A parade of dross fed to a hungry beast which needs the mediocre to make up the numbers and fill up the time.

The vast bulk of surfers will never pull on a contest singlet, never start and finish their session according to a horn, never try and jag a winning wave in the dying moments of a heat, they will never expect their fellow surfers should exit the water so they can perform. In that respect Pro Surfing is unique as a Sport. No other activity has such an inherent contradiction and tension between the vast bulk of its adherents/participants and the representative elite. To understand the deep core of Latent Anger recreational surfers hold towards the industry and Pro Surfing one need look no further than this simple fact: Pro Surfing expands at the expense of the recreational surfer.

The elephant in the room is crowds. The as-yet unacknowledged responsibility of the ASP, surf corporations and governing bodies is to create a culture of respect. Respect for the very finite resource of waves and the environment and mutual respect between pro and recreational surfers in how they share that finite resource. That is the lens through which history will view the grand adventure of Pro Surfing.

But let us return our unflinching gaze back to the questions of Tahiti and Courage. The tour will be chopped after Chopes, careers will end ingloriously, without fanfare or obituary. Pro surfing shows no mercy for the fallen 'athlete'. The sense of rising to the occasion in the heat of battle will be paramount. Lewis Samuels wrote in a recent issue of Surfer Magazine that the age of bravado had passed and that pros today 'bathed in weakness'. The validity of these comments will be put to the test at Teahupoo.

Certainly, they don't apply to the next tier down, the serial tube junkies and local Tahitians who dominated the Trials. In a perfect world, with ten foot Chopes on offer, they will make a mockery of a fair slab of the Top 44.

Amongst those on the cusp, Dean Morrison and Kieren Perrow deserve the chance to put their bravado in front of the ever-advancing scythe of career oblivion.

Amongst the rest of the 44 we watch Slater's charge for momentum. His final placing at the US Open in Huntington slop will serve as a launching pad for his confidence, which remains sometimes disturbingly fragile as he fights history to attain title ten. Martinez is the most technical goofyfoot tube-rider at Teahupoo, despite the claims of the Hopgoods. He is driven by a core of anger which soothes amongst the peoples of Polynesia.

There is no large swell imminent in the early part of the waiting period. That will test the mental fortitude of those on the cusp. It's doubtful some have the fortitude to fight and in that sense the cut-off can't come quickly enough.

Pro Surfing must embrace a sustainable future if it is to survive and develop a peaceful co-existence with the recreational surfers on whose goodwill it depends.

Tune in for daily reports from your correspondent over the waiting period.