(If there was) any other way.
Wherefore art thou, Erin Brooks? But imagine how history might have unfolded if the repêchage had been drafted differently but one week ago. For it was then and it was there, in Puerto Rico, that the World Surfing Games closed the window on Olympic qualification for the 2024 Paris Games. Only the most ignorant of surf fans will not know that Gabriel Medina stunned all, punching a much-needed third ticket for Brazil that he will take. Much-needed because one of the other two belongs to Filipe Toledo. Only the most core lord will not know that Siqi Yang will paddle the “Cave of Skulls” for the People’s Republic of China.
Only the most hardened and rude, sociopathic even, will not know that one of surfing’s brightest up-and-coming talents, the 16-years-young Erin Brooks, failed to qualify after securing Canadian citizenship in a last minute coup and appearing poised to deliver the Great White North a gold medal in the Grand Turquoise South.
Yes, the ultra-talented goofy foot might have put Canada on the surfing map had she repêchaged all the way through Puerto Rico’s 1300 odd heats, arriving at Teahupo’o and flashing her ability, claiming the peak of the podium,
Can you envisage that parallel universe? “Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux, ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!” ringing through the tropical air?
Like Narnia, winter might have evaporated. Snow being replaced with clover and daisies. Beer with banana daiquiris. But how to the locals feel about that? As one of the world’s leading, if not the world’s leading, surf journalist(s), I had to discover.
The flight to Canada from California is relatively easy. Two plus hours to Vancouver but the City of Rain is already in the pocket of Siqi Yang so further east, I went, to the burgh of Revelstoke some two plus hours outside of Kelowna. The folk here are simple, kind. Hearts that beat maple syrup. I arrived too late to properly gauge relative depression about missing out on a changed sporting landscape so drank a bubbly maple sap water then went to bed.
In the morning, refreshed, I set out to find truths. Folk seemed happy, oot and aboot. Not sad and also not very aware of Erin Brooks and what might have been. Odd, particularly because a general understanding of surf floats on the colder breeze.
Koa Smith.
I heard whispers, in mangled French, that he was inbound.
Kai Lenny too.
What?
Maybe I misunderstood. Big if true.
But what can it actually mean? Are Canadians, as a whole, pivoting away from professional competitive surfing as the sport of kings’ benchmark?
Embracing a new form of populist surfing where they, The People™, determine which surfer is ultimate?
More, certainly, as the story develops.
