10 trends for ’10

A triumphant TB. Pic Kirstin ASP

The Quik Pro’s finished …. Now the question is, what’s it started? Based on Snapper, here’s ASL’s call on the ten things we’ll see happen over and over this year in ASP World Tour Land.
Nick Carroll

Better surf. The Quik Pro had a surprisingly consistent run and a coupla days of really solid high performance surf – and she’s struggled to find that since 2006. It’s a welcome opening after a 2009 of mostly appalling World Tour surf. The blowout from an extended El Nino will keep things dynamic for some time yet and the dropping of contentious Mundaka – almost a direct swap for solid Portugal – weighs the year further toward good waves at major contest venues.


Jordy Smith slicing a Snapper wall. Pic Kirstin ASP

Better live coverage. The webcast from event one was the slickest Quik has managed, and FuelTV took it to more people than ever. It remains to be seen whether the standard can be lifted across the board – but the fact that events are increasingly and publicly judged on the quality of their live feeds can’t be lost on anyone any more. Basic errors like webcasting the on-beach commentary, failing to replay, or ignoring the world beyond whatever country you happen to be in at the time, just won’t cut it. Make those errors and get ready to be punished by the viewing audience.

Confusion on the ratings. The fact that the “One World” ranking system had Alejo Muniz at seventh in the world after the Quik Pro tells you all you need to know about this issue. Nobody understands the scale; what world it is where a non-WT pro can be running seventh? Everyone, even the renowned Renato Hickel, the ex-ASP head judge and current tour manager who’s been the backbone of the new system, knows it’s going to take some time before the points balance can be declared ideal. In the meantime we suspect there’ll be a lot of head scratching.


ASL expects to see Dane Reynolds on the podium on 2010. Pic Jones/Stryker

More event winners. The World Tour year has been averaging just under six different winners each year for some time now. The usual pattern goes like this: some cunt wins three or four, some other cunt wins two or three, and the others are scrapped up by various in-form punters or local favourites on finals day. But on Quik Pro form, this year is going to go above average. A lot of guys looked capable of winning, and nobody’s written a script for ’10, at least not one that anybody else believes. Don’t be shocked if there’s a different guy on top every event.


Chas Smith and Luke Stedman, two cool kids. Pic Surfingthemag.com

More gay journalism. The online surf media has opened doors to lots of new surf writers in recent times; naturally enough they’re drawn to the World Tour like bees to honey. The result? Some of the funniest, dumbest and most entertaining writing on the sport in many years. Wannabe Lewis Samuelses, bitterly protesting the Evil Surf Industry while happily drinking its beer, are popping out of the dirt at every turn; Chas Smith introduces the surfers as bit players in his own hectic life drama; Steve Shearer muses on crucial world events while describing Dane as the Messiah. Gold! And if in all this you’re missing the actual story, well you always know where to come.

Unsettled judging. This isn’t just to do with Perry Hatchett’s getting the sling – though fark, if I was a judge right now, I’d be thinking there isn’t too much job security in this game. It’s more to do with the pressure behind the judges to change – to reward big progressive moves beyond all else in the criteria. The thing is that they’d already been changing down these lines for a couple of years. Now they’ve been given a hurry-up to a destination some thought they’d pretty much reached. The result? Big separations of scores. At Snapper, some waves were split by over two points between individual judges; over a 10-point range, that’s a huge gap. Expect this to continue through 2010, until the new criteria, and the loss of Hatchett, settle in.

Faster events. Note how the double-bill at Snapper got done so quick? Both events were finished with four days left in the waiting period. Those four days aren’t just a kind of record at Snapper; they also meant a fair saving to an event in which quite a few corners were subtly cut on expenditure. The global recession and subsequent corporate cost-cutting means there’s less money in the contest kitties; in turn this means pressure to get shit done. Add the midyear switch to smaller main events, and you’ve got quicker programs. It’s a juggling act, though – two of those four leftover Snapper days were forecast to produce, and did produce, excellent surf … much better than either men’s or women’s finals. The surfer reps will have taken note.


Super girl Steph Gilmore leaps tall sections in a single bound. Pic Jones/Stryker

Superchicks. They’re not getting much love from the surf media for whatever reason, but you’ve gotta wonder how that can possibly last when the standard’s this high. Maybe they need their own Lewis Samuels…or Taylor Steele.


One of Kelly Slater's crazy crafts.

Ongoing surfboard weirdness. Recently the great Al Merrick, avatar of pro-surfer board design since 1982, stepped out of the bay for a life of fishing, SUPing and more fishing. His phenomenal hold on the craft of designing for top professional surfers, which has carried through from Tom Curren and Kelly Slater down to Dane Reynolds – with pretty much everyone in between ordering a Merrick quiver a coupla times a year – is over, and with it ends certainty. At Snapper guys were switching boards every second heat, borrowing from each other’s quivers, and generally groping in the dark; the gap between surfers with settled quivers and those without just kept showing up. And Kelly, well he won’t go over 5’8”.


Slater pondering his chances of a 10th world title post Quik Pro. Pic Will H-S

Kelly won’t get 10. Slater is a trend in himself. This is his 20th year on tour, and at times during the past 10, he’s threatened to grow up and out of the pro scene. But something’s always dragged him back ... some crazy showdown in the making, some record not yet broken, something yet to be proven, or just a renewed interest in the game. “Ten would be nice,” he told the media. But as KS knows like nobody else, 10 wouldn’t be nice. It’d be a remorseless year of putting all your cards on the table, heat after heat, board after board, against the best opposition in all that 20 years, and you couldn’t afford to count the cost in the process. Most of all, it’d be doing it all …again. At Snapper he looked like a guy who just doesn’t need that shit.