All Eyes on Rio

A place of beautiful people and fine, white-sand beaches. Where parties start at midnight, where delicious toxins abound at every level of society, where beautiful and buxom brown-skinned women proudly strut their stuff without shyness, without modesty, without towels draped over their naked cheeks. Where libations are gulped without guilt, where life is for the young and fast.

On a tiny corner of a beach in Rio, the Billabong Pro comes alive every year. The beach is known as Barra Da Tijuca, Arpoador, and no matter how you dress her, she appears somewhat drab. Still, we embrace her. We welcome her to the fold. It is, after all, an event for the elite surfers of the world. We’re in the big leagues, and Rio knows how to play in the big leagues. Rio knows how to rock when the lights go out.

Sitting on the calendar as the third event of the year, Rio is always going to struggle to capture the imagination of the surfing fan, to get squads cheering. It’s not the first event of the year, so there’s no fresh excitement, and it’s no where near the end of the year, so there’s no ways it can play any part in a world title chase. It does, obviously, as every event is crucial in a world title hunt, but on the surface, to your average surfing fan, it has little connection to the world champion being crowned at the end of the year at a Supertubos or a Backdoor Pipeline.

The waves in Rio are generally listless as well. Usually small, often wind affected, and suffering from a malaise of powerlessness, there are never going to be dramatic images coming out of Rio. There are never going to be any radical encounters, as two surfers hack to the beach on wind-swept waves of little energy unless there is a fight, and these days surfers are loathe to fight, to incur the wrath of a volatile and unpredictable ASP, and to lose valuable points, competition time and money.

All we can hope for is a mighty scandal. We’ve had the incredible “Floatergate’ indignity of 2011, where Brazilian bulldog Adriano de Souza was awarded a mind-boggling 8.23 for a single move wave, with that move being a stock-standard backhand floater.

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The score saw Adriano beat Owen Wright, and the online surfing universe lit up. This continued with jingoistic ferocity as Adriano went on to win the event and climb to the top of the rankings. The haters had field days, yo. Some of the comments were unparalleled in their ferocity and veracity, the ASP tried in vain to settle the storm, and the Brazilian fans fought back in the comments wars in their faltering, semi intelligible written English. It made an otherwise tired and dreary contest into a classic David vs Goliath encounter! A Championing of the Underdog situ. We can hope for something similar this year, or a Bobby Martinez blowout from another dissatisfied and vacuous professional surfing entity.

In other news, Jordy Smith is one surfer who is really looking forward to the event in Rio. The surfer who is on-a-mission-the-mostest and currently placed 7th on the world tour is champing at the bit for Rio, and wants to get stuck in. “I feel like the waves in Rio are the same as Durban’s onshore beach breaks,” reckon Smith. “That’s what I’ve grown up surfing, so I feel really comfortable.”

On top of this, Jordy’s mental game is back in. “I think the mental side is where I’ve gained most of my performance this year,” reckoned Jordy. “My confidence is sky high and back to where I was.”

Adriano is training right now, this very instance, as you read this. Slater is smarting over a poor result at Bells, as is Parko. Taj and Mick are coming on strong, and Jordy is possibly coming on stronger. The waves are going to be shit, but boy it’s going to be an exciting affair!