How great to see Kai Ellice-Flint win his first world longboard title and lead a trio of Aussies into our best performance in years at finals day in the WSL season closer at El Sunzal, El Salvador last week.
Kai, coming into the Surf City finals shootout at second seed, made a few mistakes early in the tricky side-shore low tide conditions, but pulled off a couple of smooth, long rides to despatch an unusually lacklustre third seed and four-times world champ Taylor Jensen (USA). That put him into the final set with number one seed France’s Edouard Delpero, hot off a win in the Abu Dhabi tub and needing to win only one heat to take the title.
But Delpero had to start the final on a borrowed board until the eleventh hour delivery of his board bag, lost by the airline. It didn’t seem to bother him too much, but the fast flapping Frenchman had no answer for Ellice-Flint, who had him in combo-land for most of the heat, with two superb and silky smooth waves, the first a 9.5.
It was a convincing win, but Kai, as second seed, had to surf Delpero again to make it two out a possible three. No problem.
On the women’s side of the draw, defending world champ Rachel Tilly only just made it into the finals and had to surf six times to win her third title. Exhausted, yes, but also no problem for the Californian.
I have fond memories of a young Kai Ellice-Flint coming up from the NSW Central Coast to the Noosa Festival of Surfing with his affable dad Peter and showing us his smooth style even then, surfing in the junior ranks and the old mal. As an adult he seemed almost too chilled to ever win a world title, but the past couple of years have seen a more steely approach temper his laidback aura, and last week Kai became the eighth Australian to win the men’s pro title.
It’s a list of legends, topped by Nat Young with four titles in the early days of modern longboarding, but this century Noosa is well represented by Josh Constable (2006) and Harrison Roach (2022). We’re not so well represented on the women’s side, with Chelsea Williams being the only Aussie to take the title, way back in 2014.
It’s also worth noting that at Sunzal last week, Sydney’s Declan Wyton finished fourth and Bells winner Max Weston fifth. Tully White, Australia’s only finalist in the women’s, finished eighth.
Sandshoes Sid honoured
In surfing the people who do the hard yards behind the scenes don’t get celebrated very often, which is one of the reasons I’m stoked to see that one of the world’s most influential and hard-working administrators and entrepreneurs is to be inducted into Surfing Australia’s Hall of Fame next month.
Graham “Sid” Cassidy was a surf-mad Sydney Westie who made his home at Cronulla in the Shire as soon as he could, quickly earning the nickname of Sandshoes Sid for his exploits at Sandshoes Reef, named for the surfing footwear of choice for those who didn’t want to cut their feet to ribbons on the reef’s countless sea urchins.
A career journalist until surfing got in the way (familiar story), Sid and I worked at opposite ends of the vast open-plan Fairfax Newspapers editorial floor when I started at the Sydney Morning Herald in 1970, so while we shared a couple of beers at one of the many saloon bars on nearby Broadway, I didn’t really get to know him until the first 2SM Coca Cola Bottlers Surfabout Pro, then the richest surf event in the world, in May 1974 in professional surfing’s pioneer days. Just back from a working holiday in London and wearing a heavy olive-green suit I’d bought on Carnaby Street, I clambered down the rocks at Fairy Bower to get my media pass. (There weren’t any.) Sid stood outside the admin tent with a clipboard in hand, laughing at me. He said: “Journo wears business suit to surf comp, there’s your headline!”
Then he added: “Don’t worry, mate. I’ve been there, done that.”
Surfabout was Sid’s breakout event but he was also the key man in the Australian Professional Surfers Association and later the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), then the world governing body of the pro sport. As executive director of ASP from 1987 to ’94, he played the major role in creating pro surfing’s first golden era, bringing in new sponsorships and developing a lucrative and truly global world tour.
After leaving the business side of surfing, he became executive advisor to the NSW Minister for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and then worked as marketing head for the City of Sydney. But in mind and body, he was never far away from the surf, particularly his beloved Sandshoes, where he surfed with speed, style and flow, and lived looking over the break until quite recently.
Sid made a million friends in surfing, and I was proud to be one of them. As seven-times world champion Layne Beachley says: “Sid’s love for surfing was boundless. When women’s surfing struggled for recognition, Sid stood with us, cheered for us, and helped us rise.”
And our first world pro champ in 1976, Peter Townend: “Sid was a key architect in developing pro surfing as we know it. A journo by trade, it was his love of surfing that motivated him to make it respected in the mainstream and he did just that. He loved surfing Sandshoes, playing touch footy in the park behind Shoes and just socialising with friends. A true mate!”
