The “global home of surfing” steps in it. Again.
The champagne was not yet warm when controversy rippled though the surf world over Laura Enever’s recent big wave record. Hours ago, the World Surf League declared Narabeen’s first daughter to be the Guinness World Records™ title holder for “largest wave surfed paddle-in (female).”
Awkward syntax aside, a real moment. Enever, 31, no doubt deserved all the praise and accolades for her North Shore bomb. The one-time junior champion’s transition to meaty water beasts truly an inspiration.
“Huge congratulations to Laura for this incredible achievement,” Jessi Miley-Dyer, World Surf League Chief of Sport, declared. “Laura is fearless, committed, and a real inspiration, and I’m so proud to celebrate her. These World Records really allow us to shine the spotlight on athletes like Laura who are pushing the boundaries of Big Wave surfing.”
Notably missing from any chatter, whatsoever and however, was France’s Justine Dupont. The French charger, who now resides in Nazaré, was part of a Cortes Bank strike mission. It garnered her three awards at the just-concluded Big Wave Challenge awards.
Biggest Wave, Ride of the Year and Surfer of the Year (women)
Her giant, while towed, was estimated to be 75-feet angry.
Notably, the Big Wave Challenge awards are no longer World Surf League owned.
World Surf League Puts Con In Condecession
The World Surf League, despite “really wanting to shine the spotlight on athletes pushing the boundaries of Big Wave surfing,” had no representative there with tape measure.
Thus zero Guinness love.
Now, those who have made big waves their business are properly bewildered by the seemingly condescending way that the World Surf League has co-opted the riding of giants. Billing itself as the “global home of surfing,” the WSL has made a mockery of everything that is not high-performance shortboarding. The longboard tour is a joke, the Big Wave World Tour a fraud.
It has also made a mockery of high-performance shortboarding just to make sure.
Every television production the World Surf League has attached itself to has either ended in embarrassment (The Ultimate Surfer) or failure (Make or Break).
Might Dupont’s wave being part of HBO’s award-winning 100-Foot Wave series be part of the cold shoulder?
Something more cruel?
Certainly more as the story develops.
