Two-time WSL Champion Gabriel Medina of Brazil advances directly to Round 3 of the 2019 Margaret River Pro. Photo: Kelly Cestari/WSL
It’d have been tough to blame the WSL if they’d decided to put the kibosh on the Margaret River Pro. The 2018 version was a disaster. A pair of shark attacks within 15 kilometers of the contest site at Surfers Point, an early cancellation that turned into finishing the CT’s comp in Bali, and some of its headlining athletes like Gabriel Medina and Italo Ferreira being very vocal about not feeling safe to compete there again.
“Today they had two shark attacks on a beach close to where we’re competing,” Medina wrote to his then six million followers. “I do not feel safe training and competing in this kind of place, anytime anything can happen to one of us. Hope not. Leaving my opinion before it’s too late!”
Ferreira said in part, “Very dangerous do you not think? Even so, they keep insisting on doing steps where the risk of having this type of accident is 90 percent, so I ask: is not the safety of athletes a priority?”
And then the WSL decided they’d stick it out anyway, give one of its more interesting contests another shot by extending their commitment to having the Margaret River Pro on the tour schedule through at least 2021. Again, in hindsight, you couldn’t have blamed them for throwing in the towel. God forbid an athlete were to get hurt on their watch, no matter the rational or even statistical risk, and the World Surf League would never live it down. Those aren’t exactly dice anybody wants to roll and have to play the “hindsight is 20/20” game.
When they made the announcement in February that Margs would stay on the schedule, the only known amendment was pushing the contest back a month. The previously front loaded, three Australian stops to kick off the year were broken up in the 2019 schedule with Bali in April and now Margaret River in May/June, with the League pointing out that 2018’s unusual shark activity near the West Oz event coincided with the annual salmon run in March and April.
When the event finally kicked off this week the water was noticeably a tad more packed than usual. Jet skis and a fisheries department boat can be seen patrolling the lineup, keeping an eye out for nearby wildlife. But some of the more creative efforts probably haven’t been so visible. There’s a drone flying over the lineup deployed specifically as a lookout for sharks. The WA Fisheries Department is also using mobile receivers designed to track sharks that have been tagged. Outside of the WSL competition, the WA government has apparently increased monitoring measures over the past year and is a few months into a trial of non-lethal SMART drum lines. The line has been in place to catch and tag sharks along an 11.5-kilometer stretch of coast off Gracetown.
Naturally, Medina was asked if the monitoring and safety measures had eased last year’s worries.
“This year they (the organizers) made us feel more comfortable,” Medina said. “They put out the boats, jet skis, drones, and I’m feeling good. That’s why I came back. Last year was a tough one. Everywhere we were surfing, we were seeing sharks, so yeah, we didn’t feel too comfortable.”
This week, we posted posted a story about the swell the League was expecting for the opening of the event in West Oz, mentioning the WSL’s efforts to protect its athletes, and immediately, Facebook fans opened up: “What about us, the regular, everyday surfers,” said one astute observer, summing up most of the comments. And they were right. It’s all a bit small minded to simply think about athletes and not locals – but I’m writing about competitive surfing. Here’s hoping some of these safeguards remain even after the contest scaffolding is folded and packed away to protect real-life Joes just out to catch a tasty one after work.
