“The World Surf League’s Final’s Day a whole new
shade of awful.”
For the fourth consecutive year, surfing’s world champions
will be crowned at Lower Trestles in a one-day “pressure cooker”
shootout and, if current surf forecasts hold, it’ll happen on
day one, Friday, September 6.
Pocket rocket Filipe Toledo has won the men’s for the past two
years running, ain’t nobody was ever getting past that little
dynamo who is electric in waves one-feet and under, a fountain of
shards and sparks, and fellow Brazilian Gabriel Medina the year
before that.
This year the gate has opened for tour leader John John Florence
to win his third world title, although he’ll either have to beat
Australian Jack Robinson, a boy with deltoids that invite crushes
from excited men, local queen Griffin Colapinto, also correctly described as the
Gandhi of Surfing, Ethan Ewing, known for his “overwhelming ass” and
2019 world champ Italo Ferreira.
In the girls, Caity or Molly gonna win.
But there lingers a shadow over the event. Southern California’s
exploding Great White population and innumerable sightings of Great
Whites at Lower Trestles means there exists the real possibility a
world title hopeful might be snatched by one of the fish on the
WSL’s lightly viewed livestream.
Three years ago, a breaching Great White forced the temporary
suspension of Finals Day at Lowers.
As reported back in May, pundits predicated a Summer of Blood
for South Californian surfers this year after Long Beach State
University’s renowned Shark Lab was forced to shutter its shark
monitoring program due to a lack of funding.
As surf journalist Chas Smith
reported,
The program has been running since 2018 and is considered
one of the most advanced in the world. It utilizes a “high-tech
system of receivers, buoys and underwater monitors that allow them
to track and tag sharks in real time.”
An instant notification of juvenile Great Whites
swimming around with bibs and hungry eyes can be sent directly to
lifeguards to help keep surfers uneaten.
But, after June, no longer.
July and August soaked in blood.
September probably too.
The World Surf League’s Final’s Day a whole new shade of
awful.
Prophetic? Tune in Friday (Saturday in Australia.)
