It’s more than 60 years since a couple of kids called Caroline and John John captured the hearts of America and the world under very different circumstances, but it wasn’t too much of a stretch to see parallels with the Kennedy kids at their father’s funeral and the crowning of Caitlyn Simmers and John John Florence as WSL world champions at Lower Trestles last weekend.
There were elements of triumph and tragedy in both, but to be fair, at the California surfing playground by the railroad tracks, the very same beach that President Richard Nixon closed to the public so he could walk his dogs in peace just a few short years after JFK’s assassination, the triumph was over the adversity of lacklustre conditions punctuated by frustratingly long lulls when the Pacific went to sleep, and the tragedy was that the world’s best surfers had to contest the 2024 world titles at the third (possibly second) worst location of the 10-stop championship tour. And even the WSL has recognised this and shifted next year’s finals series to Fiji. If this year’s titles had been settled at Cloudbreak the results may well have been the same, but getting there would have been less painful for viewers.
And yes, this old fool got out of bed at 1.30am and watched it, knowing that Lowers was going to be shoulder to head high at best, which is not exactly made to measure for our homegrown final five trio of Molly Picklum, Jack Robinson and Ethan Ewing. Predictably, all went out without a fight in their respective rounds, although, not to take anything away from the performances of the winners, for my money the Ewing versus Italo Ferreira clash produced the best surfing of the day, and gave a clear indication of where the heads of the judges were at.
Given an A-frame with a whiff of sideshore wind, Italo can punt big air reverses all day long, and that’s exactly what he did as he progressed through the draw, but in the first of the men’s heats it came down to the last exchange in which the judges preferred a single-manoeuvre close-out punt to a better than average wave on which Ethan gave a master class on rail work. In my old school head, it wasn’t even close, the heat going to Ewing. But yeah, nah.
Jack Robbo was next up for his medicine, and for a bloke who can spend plenty of time above the lip, he seemed disinterested, perhaps dreaming about the finals in Fiji next year. As Swellnet’s astute Steve Shearer wrote: “Cloudbreak can’t come soon enough for a man who is burning through prime world title years with precious little to show for it.”
Speaking of burning, someone had lit a huge fire under Italo, who smashed homeboy Griffin Colapinto, completely devastating the raucous and highly vocal San Clemente mob, and was caught by the cameras in the athlete zone smashing his fists into walls and screaming, “Two more!” in preparation for his showdown against world number one John Florence.
After years of injury outs, JJF has been on point all season long and it was going to take more than a train (not even the nearby San Diego Flyer) or a flying Brazilian to stop him taking out his third world title. Straight sets to the Hawaiian.
The story of the women’s draw was all about Tatiana Weston-Webb, the Brazilian who only just squeaked into the final five but was determined to repeat Steph Gilmore’s charge from the rear two years ago. And she went so close, knocking out Molly easily and Brisa Hennessy just, before falling to the axe of reigning champ Caz Marks who, as Caity Simmers noted, “never f___ing falls off”.
The women’s final went to a third set after Caity and Caz had traded extraordinary nine-pluses, and then Lowers went to sleep, as it sometimes does. Caz rode one wave, a seven, to Caity’s two. And that was that. It was like watching paint dry, only not as compelling. Not the way you’d like to make history as the youngest ever world surfing champion, but hey, the amusingly potty-mouthed 18-year-old was happy to take it. And deservedly so. She has had a stunning year.
Gold for our Lexy
Old news now, but how good was it to see Noosa’s Alexa Leary’s gloriously gutsy home stretch to take out gold in the 100 metre freestyle S9 at the Paris Paralympics!
Just three years after a horrific cycling accident that almost claimed her life at the tender age of 20, the former triathlete broke her own world record twice in a day in blinding swims that will go down in history. What a proud moment for parents Russ and Belinda, who at her bedside in 2021 were told to say goodbye.
There have been so many magic moments at these Paralympics, reminding me of the most memorable sporting moment I’ve been privileged to witness, on a day when Olympics and Paralympics were one.
On 4 August 2012 in London Oscar Pistorius of South Africa became the first amputee to compete in an Olympic event when he ran in an opening heat of the men’s 400-metre. Pistorius, known as the Blade Runner, finished second out of five runners and advanced to the semi-finals, where he finished eighth out of eight runners.
Working for the Australian broadcaster at the Games, I was sitting about a dozen rows back from the track with colleague Tracey Holmes on that historic night, when the massive crowd stood as one and screamed support for this heroic man as he trailed the field past us. Whether he was coming first or last made no difference. It was the fact that he was out there competing on a level playing field (literally) despite his disability. I didn’t just shed a tear, I was sobbing, completely in awe of the heroism of this man.
Six months later Pistorius shot and killed his model girlfriend and served more than 10 years in jail, so to say he was a flawed hero is something of an understatement. But for me nothing can take away the magic of that moment, when, like Alexa Leary last week, an athlete broke the bounds of the possible.
