The news came in hot and heavy this week in the surfing world, with stories coming in from all over the wave-riding world. Welcome back to the Weekly Wrap, where The Inertia’s Juan Hernandez wraps up all the best stories on our site each week.
Nazaré got the green light, running a BWT event for the second time there since November, and Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca revealed himself as having the hottest hand in the big wave game. His usual tow partner, Kai Lenny, earned a wild card invitation to the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach and stayed in Hawaii as a result. Chianca didn’t skip a beat, winning best individual male performance honors and sharing a victory with his event partner Nic von Rupp. Also next to Chianca on the podium was Maya Gabeira, who took the moment to drop a little shade on a former sponsor and point out that she’s still getting the job done, with or without major backing.
“Don’t give up on your dreams,” she said.
Elsewhere in the realm of big waves, researchers came across a freakish rogue wave off the coast of Canada.
Back on the World Tour, former CT competitor Keala Kennelly talked about the significance of the women’s tour finally having an event at Pipe. She also didn’t pull any punches, acknowledging that surf brands have work to do if they really want to promote equality in the sport.
On the men’s side, Senior Editor Joe Carberry spoke to the mother of a certain guy wearing the yellow jersey. Judy Slater Lane shared stories about raising Kelly and watching his historic career.
On the hill, Editor Will Sileo hit the road for Jackson Hole. He’s taking in the action at Kings and Queens of Corbet’s, which people will be able to watch and follow with The Inertia when that event gets the green light sometime between February 12 and February 18.
Hopefully, you caught your breath during this “down week” because we’ll have Hurley Pro results to report from Sunset by this time next week and possibly some madness from Jackson Hole.
