surferstu said..
This is what the wct will look like very soon, taj parko mick Kerr slater hobgood durbidge gone and replaced with brazos. no aussies coming thru to replace em

is that an attempt at being a troll? that's an absurd comment to make. got to any known hotspot on the east coast or go to the more treacherous spots down south and you'll see exactly what's coming through. have personally surfed supertubes with a select handful of people in the lineup - one of whom was jack robinson. was paddling back into the lineup at one point and the next wave was his. he got fully shacked and then effortlessly chucked an alley-oop, landing a couple of metres away from me, clean. tell me there's nothing coming through? if that's not good enough for the wct, i'll eat my hat.

then there's jack freestone, who i've been in the same lineup with at north point. again, i shall eat my hat if his surfing is not good enough. the list goes on...

Trolling? Hell no, Im aussie I want to see aussies on tour. I don't see those guys you mentioned on tour, let's see them get on it and stay there instead of more medinas and de souzas.

Sorry i have no idea how to copy this. But if you can see it cool..

www.instagram.com/p/0qs5CIFck8/?taken-by=layback

thomas11 said..

sparki said..

surferstu said..
This is what the wct will look like very soon, taj parko mick Kerr slater hobgood durbidge gone and replaced with brazos. no aussies coming thru to replace em

is that an attempt at being a troll? that's an absurd comment to make. got to any known hotspot on the east coast or go to the more treacherous spots down south and you'll see exactly what's coming through. have personally surfed supertubes with a select handful of people in the lineup - one of whom was jack robinson. was paddling back into the lineup at one point and the next wave was his. he got fully shacked and then effortlessly chucked an alley-oop, landing a couple of metres away from me, clean. tell me there's nothing coming through? if that's not good enough for the wct, i'll eat my hat.

then there's jack freestone, who i've been in the same lineup with at north point. again, i shall eat my hat if his surfing is not good enough. the list goes on...

Maybe these guys don't want to surf the tour?
Take Freestone for example.
He is paid a lot by his sponsors to free surf the world with little pressure of competitions, put up a few Instagram shots of him and his product, and make movies, he just does a few comps here and there to keep his competitive profile up and compete in his sponsors comps to keep them happy.

And he gets to go home and bang Blanchard.

Sounds pretty good to me.

Probably more money on the tour, but I don't think he would be battling, plus his misses Ass has its own 6 figure salary.

Its an interesting point about free surfing.

Some of the best young surfers in the country don't compete on tour. Guys like Ando, Clay Marzo, Noa Deane and Ozzy Wright. Maybe its a sign of the times that as the ASP/WSL moves to capture a bigger market, its starting to alienate some of the guys who see surfing purely as a way of expressing themselves rather than as an income.

Maybe we'll see more and more talented aussie surfers turning their backs on competition and corporate life, when they can have fun and still make a living as a free-surfer.

Yeah very true, but you could argue that the guys on the tour are the best in the world at winning heats, not necessarily the best surfers in the world.

Perhaps the way scores are allocated in heats supports this. For example, a Reynolds or a Martinez could throw the cutback of a lifetime, totally beyond us mortals and be scored a 5, while the brazzo in the heat can throw 4 snaps along the face of the wave and get a 7 all day long.

Medina surfed really well last year, and he was very clever and shrewd in the way he picked off his opponents. He might be the world champ bit is he the worlds best? Nah.

LateStarter said...
Yeah very true, but you could argue that the guys on the tour are the best in the world at winning heats, not necessarily the best surfers in the world.

Perhaps the way scores are allocated in heats supports this. For example, a Reynolds or a Martinez could throw the cutback of a lifetime, totally beyond us mortals and be scored a 5, while the brazzo in the heat can throw 4 snaps along the face of the wave and get a 7 all day long.

Medina surfed really well last year, and he was very clever and shrewd in the way he picked off his opponents. He might be the world champ bit is he the worlds best? Nah.

There is the odd abberation, but for the most part world champions are there for a reason. Slater, Fanning, Irons, Curren, the Oc, Carroll, Tomson and so on. Not necessarily the year they win it, but all of them were the worlds best at some stage.

Even Barton Lynch who often gets overlooked. He did the best turn I have ever seen in real life free surfing after a Margies Masters back in '98. I was on the shoulder just awestruck. And that was near the end for him.

For the most part, the cream rises to the top.

But I still hate that a Zilla won one.

Nice