Medina, Florence, Slater. Who’s on first?
Last year was marked by triumph and controversy. The power structure of professional surfing showed signs of a tectonic shift, both in the water and out. A 21-year-old Brazilian surfer won the world title. A professional surfing league with a new-look took its first uneven steps and changed its name. With the first event of 2015 underway, the WSL will seek to find the balance between being a company, which means they have to make money, and becoming a champion of surfers everywhere.
But our eyes will hopefully focus on the battles going on in the water, which are better than ever. The 2015 WSL season is shaping up to be a battle of young versus old. The title contenders come, by and large, from two distinct generations. Time and time again, we’ll hear these questions: Does the old guard have it in them? Can the young surfers stand up to the challenge?
The following is the first of two installments of a season preview for each surfer on the 2015 WSL Tour. They are listed in order, more or less, of how they finished last year. This is not a set of predictions, but a discussion.
Gabriel is not merely a savvy competitor. He wants to push the limits of surfing. Photo: Trevor Moran / Red Bull Content Pool
Gabriel Medina
In 2014, Medina shattered the glass ceiling that doubters had placed over him and Brazilian surfing in general. His three event victories took place in ridiculously diverse conditions, and, as if he needed to prove something, he dropped a perfect ten at Backdoor in the finals of the Pipe Masters.
His Average Heat Margin (AMH) of +2.84 bested all other surfers on tour. His quarterfinal air at Trestles against Ace Buchan should have had more coverage; John John’s absurd Round 4 performance probably overshadowed it. The fact that he only received an 8.27—and lost the heat—may also have dampened some of the long-term enthusiasm. The moment, however, belonged to Gabriel: “We talk about John John, [but] Gabriel, he’s actually reaching another level,” said Ross Williams as Ace Buchan turned his way to a thoroughly less inspiring 9.43 immediately after. That’s another thing: Gabriel is not merely a savvy competitor. He wants to push the limits of surfing.
His unbelievable success in three-man heats certainly helped him in 2014. He won 16 of his 20 three-man R1 and R4 heats. Gabriel Medina won 2014 in all conceivable ways possible—except most of the world still thinks John John is a better surfer.
What does that mean for 2015? He’s not going to catch anyone by surprise at Snapper—or anywhere, for that matter—but, if he makes it out of the Australian leg with two keeper results, Medina will be considered the favorite to repeat. He left Brazil with a 13th last year, and that won’t happen again. He looks more composed in the South Pacific than anyone else, and his ability in beachbreak waves from three to thirteen feet is well documented—he won at Ocean Beach in San Francisco and in France during his rookie season. As scary as Medina was in 2014, the rest of the tour is now looking at an even more fearsome competitive surfer—and they’re looking up.
Fanning’s primed to make a run at World Title number four. He’s the best [male] Australian surfer of the last thirty years, and he deserves more respect. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Most surf fans seem to think of Mick Fanning as a hardworking fitness nut whose competitive prowess enables him to win more heats than he should. Outside of Australia, it’s tough to imagine him receiving the reverence that another 3-time world champion, Andy Irons, receives worldwide. Lewis Samuels, in his 2014 Tour wrap-up on Surfline, said: “There is no magic to Mick Fanning, not an iota. He wins titles by breaking the backs of wildcards and low seeds in every event…can you recall a single wave Mick rode this year?”
Without immediately addressing Samuels’ ridiculous final question, let’s take a look at his original assertion: that Fanning is a surfer who wins with consistency rather than “magic.” The evidence proves that Samuels’ claim is simply untrue. In fact, Fanning had a wildly unpredictable campaign in 2014. He got smoked by wildcard Yadin Nicol at Margaret River and then outdueled by another wildcard, David Do Carmo, in Rio. 30th-seeded Dion Atkinson destroyed him in Teahupoo and then he looked listless against Alejo Muniz with a world title on the line at Pipe.
At each of the three events he won, Mick Fanning averaged greater than a four-point victory per heat. His 9.57 in Round 4 in Portugal, when he emerged from a seemingly unmakeable barrel well after we’d written him off seemed to signify that his switch had been flipped: his closest challenger was Kai Otton, whom Fanning dispatched 13.17 to 8.4. His opening 9 (one of his many, many memorable waves during the year, Lewis) in the finals at J-Bay established a dominance that Joel Parkinson couldn’t break. There’s a word for what happens when a surfer seems to become possessed by ability, when an unidentifiable characteristic enables him to do things he couldn’t do before. It’s “magic.”
Fanning’s 2014 title run was ultimately hampered by his inability to carry success from one event into the next. He followed his three event victories with a 9th, a 13th and a 25th, failures that mirror his inability to defend any of his three world titles. Without such responsibility in 2015, Fanning’s primed to make a run at World Title number four. He’s the best [male] Australian surfer of the last thirty years, and he deserves more respect.
Florence still has a few steps to take if he wants to beat Medina. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
John John Florence
If John John wants to win a World Title, he will have to be better than Gabriel Medina. It’s nearly as simple as that. The young, progressive surfers have poised themselves to take over the CT, and as long as neither burns out, it’s likely that Medina and Florence will be facing off in more finals than any other pair over the next ten years.
Florence still has a few steps to take if he wants to beat Medina. The world champion played a large part in Florence’s early-season woes, relegating the Hawaiian to the second round in both of the first two events as well as eliminating him during a Round 3 rematch in West Oz. He also knocked John John out in the quarterfinals of the Fiji Pro. Florence won three-man heats against Medina at Bells and Hossegor, but Medina was the more complete, consistent and composed surfer in 2014, and he’s not going away.
When he brought all his talent together, Florence was otherworldly, doing things on waves that no one else in the world can do. In California and Europe he created an excitement that transcended competitive surfing, not just by executing one move perfectly, but by continually shocking spectators with style, skill and creativity that only he possesses. No one else on tour is capable of as much as John John Florence. He’s the most exciting surfer in the world right now and we’re lucky to watch him.
Yet we’re all worried that Florence will decide he’s had enough of the competitive surfing thing—that whatever he has to prove, it won’t be proven in heats. Unfortunately for surfing fans, it’s a problem nearly unique to our sport. The essence of mainstream sports is competition; football couldn’t exist without there being a game. Surfing has to be molded into competition. Even without the advantages that the NFL has, it’s up to the WSL to make the CT so spellbinding that you absolutely have to compete if you want to be the best surfer in the world.
To be fair, it’s probably closer to that than most people think. If Dane Reynolds cared about being known as the Greatest Surfer Alive, wouldn’t he still be trying to win titles? Then again: are we really sure that John John cares?
It’s almost inconceivable that he would go winless again in 2015. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Kelly Slater
It wasn’t that Slater lost, but how he lost in 2014 that seemed so unfamiliar to the surf world. In his quarterfinal loss to Michel Bourez in Fiji, Slater overextended his backside hacks and ended up eating it on his first two waves, errors that we expect just about everyone except Slater to make. In his lone finals appearance, the foamball ate him, turning what would have been the winning ride into a meaningless 3.4. He chose not to use his wildcard into the BWT event in Peru so he could focus on J-Bay…where he lost definitively to Matt Wilkinson in Round 3.
He’s still the most entertaining interview on tour, but that’s because of his intelligence and eloquence, not because of his passion. In fact, the most passion he displayed last year came in the moments following his unbelievable air in Portugal. “John John could have been out there, he could have got that section,” he said. “What’s he doing today?”
If Kelly wins his 12th World Title and claims supremacy over yet another generation of surfers, it will be because he found a way to gather the drive that rotated him two full times in Portugal, the neurosis that led him to trash-talk John John immediately after, and the anger that caused him to smash his board after his Round three exit a few days later. His greatest moment of 2014 came while freesurfing, and that probably doesn’t make him very happy. It’s almost inconceivable that he would go winless again in 2015 (unless he doesn’t mind losing all that much).
If he can ever turn his sputters of brilliance into sustained, strategic surfing, he’ll be a threat to win a World Title. Until then, he’s just as liable to hit a streak of bad luck and get knocked off tour. Photo: Trevor Moran / Red Bull Content Pool
Michel Bourez
Bourez broke out of his box in 2014, becoming the tour’s premier power surfer and one of the most entertaining guys to watch on the circuit. He always goes for broke. He absolutely demolished Sunset Beach en route to winning the Vans World Cup.
But his competitive repertoire is unbalanced, and not in the way you think. Before every event in left barrels, Michel is cited as a guy to watch merely because he’s Tahitian. In reality, he’s one of the least dangerous guys on tour in the South Pacific and at Pipeline. His career results in Tahiti are as follows: 33, 9, 9, 13, 25, 9. Fiji’s not much better, though he did hack his way to a semifinal there last year (once again, though, Fiji wasn’t about heaving left barrels in 2014).
His AHM of +0.26 was just 14th on tour, last year’s biggest disparity between year-end rankings and Average Heat Margin. This had a lot to do with abysmal performances in Round 4, where he lost all seven of the heats he entered. But it’s not like he can’t hack it against elite competition: he went 3-0 in quarters, 2-1 in semis, and 2-0 in finals.
If he can ever turn his sputters of brilliance into sustained, strategic surfing, he’ll be a threat to win a World Title. Until then, he’s just as liable to hit a streak of bad luck and get knocked off tour.
Joel could find himself in the final at Snapper without trying and in the lead for the World Title after Jeffrey’s Bay. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Joel Parkinson
Don’t close the book on Parko. His AHM was actually second best last year (+2.59) and he might have been able to throw his hat in the ring for a World Title had he not finished the year by failing to get out of Round 3 in four of the final five events. He lost a few heartbreakers early, including the 0.06-point Snapper final, which would have had very serious end-of-year implications for Medina and, therefore, the entire tour.
What explains his devastating backslide to finish the season? Maybe he gave up: “We’re talking to Joel the other day,” said Martin Potter in France, “and he said his chances have slipped through his fingers.” If motivation is difficult to gather for Joel, 2015 might see the slide continue. There’s not much room to add anything new to his legacy: he won’t match Mick’s three world titles, Slater was the best surfer of Joel’s era, and he’s had the Style World Title sewn up for ages.
Then again, the tour is very friendly to all regularfoots with appealing frontside attacks, especially in the beginning. Joel could find himself in the final at Snapper without trying and in the lead for the World Title after Jeffrey’s Bay.
He must follow Parko’s recipe if he ever wants to win one: perform exceptionally well in the contests that suit your strengths, defeat every lesser surfer in the events that don’t, and hope you catch a few breaks along the way. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Jordy Smith
Did Jordy have the best wave of 2014? You know the one. It happened at J-Bay against Owen Wright and Jadson Andre in Round 1. He got a perfect 10—and a 19.8 in the heat—before losing in Round 3. Smith’s career has played out similarly: he’s exhibited flourishes of brilliance, but they’ve been overwhelmed by an inability to sustain it.
Optimists and pessimists will have distinctly different views on Jordy’s season. If the glass is half full, Jordy’s remarkable second-half run promises that he has the ability to win a World Title. Before Trestles, Smith was ranked 14th in the world. He jumped six surfers even after Bells, Jeffrey’s Bay, Margaret River or Snapper Rocks—waves all suited to his surfing style—had already come and gone. The tour calendar is built very advantageously for regularfooted power carvers. He’s proven he can win outside of those waves, so he must be a contender.
On the other hand, pessimists may point out, Jordy was unable to finish higher than 5th in any of those early-season events. You can count on Jordy to blow it at a few events each year, they’ll say.
Either view represents a dramatization of Smith’s past and his potential. His AHM of +1.25 was sixth best in 2014, so he was not that lucky or unlucky. As Smith undoubtedly knows himself, he has to improve or get very lucky in left barrels if he wants to sniff a World Title. He owns two 25ths and a 9th in the past three years in Tahiti; in Fiji, he’s placed 13th twice and 5th once in the same timeframe. He placed 5th at Pipeline in 2010 and hasn’t equaled it since.
The fact that we regularly talk about Jordy Smith in our discussion of contenders reveals that his potential far outstrips his results. He must follow Parko’s recipe if he ever wants to win one: perform exceptionally well in the contests that suit your strengths, defeat every lesser surfer in the events that don’t, and hope you catch a few breaks along the way. Fortunately for Jordy, it’s possible. Unfortunately, there are a number of surfers who qualify for Parko’s plan, and most of them won’t ever succeed.
The lack of superlatives around de Souza makes it far too easy to get down on him–far easier than it should be. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Adriano de Souza
De Souza did not surf above his pay grade in 2014, but he did not surf below it, either. His AHM of +1.07 perfectly matched his 8th-place finish on the season. He beat surfers that he was expected to and, by and large, lost to the surfers expected to beat him. How else do you explain a top-10 finish despite the fact that he only made it out of the quarters once all year?
He’s never finished better than 5th in the world, either, so it doesn’t seem like his classic repertoire will suddenly vault him into Title contention. Adriano de Souza’s reign as the top Brazilian surfer on the ‘CT has obviously come to an end as well. The versatile, intense journeyman gives us little reason to believe that his determined, steady pace will do anything but continue into the distant future.
The lack of superlatives around de Souza makes it far too easy to get down on him–far easier than it should be. If you look closely enough, though, little signs of strength abound. How’s this: he lost only one Round 2 heat all year, and the margin was just 0.23 points. Despite starting out the year with four straight Round 1 losses, he failed to make it to Round 4 just twice all season. He went 2-6 in Round 4, but those two victories allowed him to begin and end his season on a high note: they occurred at Snapper and Supertubos. (He was injured for Pipeline).
As tempting as it is to throw proclamations around about De Souza’s surfing, it should be enough to say that he’s a world-class athlete who you don’t want your favorite surfer to draw in a heat. Moreover, every time you watch him surf, you hope that your favorite surfer could emulate Adriano de Souza’s work ethic and mental fortitude.
Historically, Taj has struggled mightily in Europe. Strings of poor finishes in France, Spain and Portugal have usurped him from each year’s pack of title hopefuls. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Taj Burrow
Taj Burrow and Joel Parkinson tied for second-best on the CT with a 12-6 record in three-man heats in 2014. For Joel, that record acted as another statistical argument that showed his 2014 season was better than his 6th-place ranking would suggest; for Taj, it showed that three-man heats were a bright spot during a year that went more or less like all the others have.
Historically, Taj has struggled mightily in Europe. Strings of poor finishes in France, Spain and Portugal have taken him out of each year’s pack of title hopefuls. It would be tempting to say that Taj wears down as the season goes on, but he has won the Pipe Masters as well as Santa Cruz’s late-season WCT event in 2012. Does he underperform in beachbreaks? Not really: he’s had relatively consistent success in Brazil, making multiple finals appearances and winning the Santa Catarina Pro in 2004.
The only reasonable conclusion, then, is that Taj Burrow has a French supermodel girlfriend who, with payment from rival sponsors, systematically demotivates Taj with feminine guile and world-class wine. It’s the only reason someone with so much talent doesn’t—and probably never will—have a World Title to his name.
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Josh Kerr
Many moons ago, Kerr announced his arrival on the 2007 WCT with a bang, going down to Mick Fanning in an incredible quarterfinal where he pulled an inverted nosepick just about seven years ahead of its time. If critics of competitive surfing want to demonstrate how competition stifles innovation, that’s a good heat to point to for support. As far as the most embarrassing judging moments of the modern era go, it’s on par with Dane Reynold’s ridiculously underscored layback at Haleiwa in 2012.
In fact, Josh Kerr’s career in general might be the best example of how competition can turn a crazy piece of 12-grain toast into white bread. Kerr’s surfing has evolved to win heats, and what he now lacks in flair he makes up for in consistency. 2014 marked his fourth top-10 finish in a row. Kerr’s white bread is delicious, and it’s very, very hard to achieve the results he has achieved in each of the past four years. Even if innovation has taken a backseat, Kerr has turned into a fearsome competitive animal who can win any heat at any location on tour. He’s not in the same league as Slater, John John or Medina, though. To get there, he will have to combine his radical past with his steadfast present. The tour’s truly elite surfers do in fact push the envelope regularly in heats, and the judges nearly always reward them.
In 2014, Josh Kerr had the benefit of being the highest seed in every single Round 1 matchup he had, save one (France), and he turned in a respectable 7-4 record in those heats. If he’s happy hovering around the bottom of the tour’s top third of surfers—and continue being the highest seed in his Round 1 heats—there’s little reason to believe he’ll go anywhere else on 2015.
Photo: Ryan Miller/Red Bull Content Pool
Kolohe Andino
Andino was the highest-ranked surfer to have a negative AHM in 2014 (-0.03). When you look at his results, it makes sense. He won by modest margins, and got absolutely blown out on several occasions, getting eliminated by over six points four separate times throughout the year. 2014 was a triumphant year for Kolohe, one in which he made many strides forward. But he doesn’t have to look too hard to find areas where he needs to improve.
According to much of the buzz surrounding Andino, one such area is his forehand, and it’s tough to argue: he has yet to make it past the third round in seven Australian CT contests, getting eliminated by a comfortable margin in most cases. Qualitatively, though, his looks like a case of serious underscoring. His forehand hacks are both unique and powerful, and his air game is as good as anyone’s. If he can’t get a good result in Australia in 2015, however, Andino supporters will have to admit that he has a deficiency.
Due to his low AHM, which suggests his 2014 finish might be a little inflated, and the fact that there are four rights on the tour (five if you count Trestles), it seems unlikely that 2015 will see Andino make a jump similar to the one he made last year. Merely holding his rank throughout 2015 should appease his fans; it would go a long way toward establishing Kolohe’s place on tour for years to come.
Photo: WSL/ Kirstin Scholtz
Owen Wright
Wright eliminated another hard-charging goofyfoot, Fred Patacchia, three times in contests in 2014. Like Freddy P, Owen Wright does well because he’s less conservative in heavy lefts than the rest of the tour’s middle pack. Also like Freddy P, Wright’s brilliance has been tempered by injuries and what seems to be a lack of focus in less-than-perfect conditions.
His backside repertoire is not as good as his frontside surfing, and the World Tour schedule puts surfers like Owen at a disadvantage each and every year by kicking off the season at three straight rights. Obviously, if Margaret River is big this year, that might not be the case, but there’s a good chance most scoring rides in West Oz will be on the rights. The line between 12th and 13th on the tour is the line between being the highest-rated surfer in your Round 1 heat and, well, being second best. Surfers that cannot manage to significantly improve their ranking in the first three events hurt their seeding in the next eight.
Therefore, early mediocre results from surfers in the middle pack greatly decrease the likelihood of significant success throughout the rest of the year. Remember, it’s not just about some surfers’ deficiencies; right-hand specialists like Bede Durbidge, Adriano de Souza and Jordy Smith receive a boost that mirrors Owen’s despair, which widens the gap further. This makes last year’s title run by Gabriel Medina, who began the season seeded 15th, all the more impressive. The WSL would do well in terms of balance if they could follow Snapper with an event in, say, Indo, where they’d have a multitude of world-class lefts to consider.
Before his injury, Owen seemed to be rounding into a top-tier surfer, and we’ll know where he truly stands after a full year of full health. A year ago, Medina was in basically the same position that Owen is now.
Be on the lookout for part two of Miklos Zotlan’s 2015 WSL season preview in the coming days.
