John John, victorious in Rio. Image: ASP/Kirstin
Watching Ke11y win World Titles consecutively is only fun for so long. But just when you thought the ASP World Tour wasn’t relevant, that competition in surfing had gone the way of Dane Reynolds and his Sperm Whale, 19-year-old John John Florence and his peers air reverse their way back into relevance.
Between Gabriel Medina’s (also 19 years old) air show at Lowers earlier this month and John John winning his first event on the ASP World Tour, it appears that a new generation is ready to do battle in professional surfing’s biggest arena. Even Kelly Slater tweeted, “it’s about time”, in reference to Florence’s first ASP World Tour event win. Slater has a point, as Florence’s shelf already sports three championship trophies from Pipeline (his backyard) and the Vans Triple Crown. Medina took home two ASP World Tour event wins his rookie year and put an on impressive performance in Hawaii before a winning the Nike Lower’s Pro two weeks ago. And we haven’t even talked about Kolohe Andino, who at 18 years of age has yet to win an event on the World Tour. Although with multiple 6-Star wins, he is a promising prospect. That’s more than many surfers can say for their entire career.
Once we’ve gotten all excited about the new kids and all their accolades, a veteran sneaks into first place in the ASP World Rankings. This time it isn’t a bald Floridian. No, it’s Joel Parkinson. With a decade of World Tour experience under his belt, the three-time runner up has finished in the top ten in all but one of the five events he has competed in this year. It seems Parko is making a quiet comeback.
With a third in Brazil, a third at the 4-star Breaka Burleigh Pro, and a first at Bells, Mick Fanning is hot on Parko’s tail. Fanning has two World Titles and he has finished in the top ten in every single one of the nine years he has been on tour except for last year. So it will be interesting to see how he keeps the ball rolling, especially when guys ten years his junior are winning events.
Rounding out the top five are Josh Kerr, Adriano De Souza, Taj Burrow, and John John Florence respectively. Burrow and Florence are tied for an equal fifth. But with Florence, Medina and Andino rising from their youth to the call of Pro Surfing glory, those names could soon be a little further down the list. Florence himself already sits with a 5 Star win at the Volcom Pipeline Pro and a Prime win at the Margaret River Telstra Drug Aware Pro. It would not be surprising to see this modest newcomer climb the list quite quickly.
Three of the ten World Tour events already behind us, Tavarua in our sights for the first time in a while, and this time the promise of a live broadcast. Tour veterans battling it out in some of the greatest arenas in surfing; underdogs, upsets and all. But as it all blurs into the beautiful circus that is pro surfing, it is nice to take a minute and think about what the future holds for us. And it is wonderful that we are reminded of that every time these young surfers paddle out for a heat.
