Surfing Waves

Man, you should here the internet chatter about that move/mistake Kelly Slater did in round 5 heat 3 at the Hurley pro Trestles. It's pretty much split down the middle. Half are saying it was incredible and was worth way more than the 4.17 given by the judges. Half are saying not so, since he fell off his board and the rest of the wave doesn't count.

To me, he came off the board but fell back on. He didn't ride on his belly than pop up, his hands grabbed the board then his feet contacted the deck. He came out of it at full speed, he made the wave and continued to pull straight into his next maneuver. The rest of the maneuvers ( back side 360, 2 off the lips snaps ) were worth more than 4.17. When surfers start doing finger flips and kick flips like the skateboarders are doing ( funny since skateboarding is derived from surfing ), are those going to be considered mistakes too ?

To the nay sayers, if you said "wow !" or "ho, what was that ?!" when you first saw the video, than I say it's worth more than 4.17 points

Here's the video

The best 4.17 ever

But I've fallen off and landed on my board plenty of times...

People kept saying he landed on his belly but the white water is making it very hard to tell. You can see his hip made the movement of popping up but no matter what. It is an amazing recovery and I think we can finally confirm that the judges are unfair at their scoring. You can hear the crowd cheering and that's what they want to see. I'm doubting that the judges themselves are even surfers. I think they must be the same as the biased Japanese judges that wkkk mentioned in a previous post.

Every time when I watch WSL it just seems like a luck game. Whoever got the best sets had the highest score. Doing the same maneuver over and over again is really boring to watch. I think the priority system also needs some changes. The surfers needs to be judged based on the wave they are given and not how good the waves are. I think the surfers are constricted into the same maneuver for the highest score and not doing risky thing.

It was like Freddy P wave didn't really deserve a 10. It was good but definitely not a perfect 10.

The video I posted doesn't have the slow motion replay. But if you watch the slo-mo, you can see he is bodysurfing a milli-second above the board and places he feet back on. It was not like he landed an air attempt and bucking bronco in the whitewater and stood up on the sand. He came out with speed.

Imagine if in Freestyle MX if you were scored low for leaving the seat / pegs. "Oh, you did a one-handed seat grab, that's terrible". I used to love seeing Christian Hosoi do Christ Airs way above the ramp. Innovation. Risk.

I would have given him more points for it. Awesome recovery. If the whitewater covered him completely so you couldn't see what happened this would have scored higher. Slater is still amazing in his advancing years and accumulated injuries. I guess the reason judges don't give him more points is because it was a recovery and not like he was in control the whole time.

It was great surfing and took a lot of skill but it was also an incomplete maneuver so I think it should have been maybe a 6

It was an awesome recovery, so crazy I had to watch a second time to realize what had happened!

About the score, there is two ways you can look at it. If you consider he failed the air, and it was a recovery, not an intentional maneuver, it shouldn't be scored that high (even though I think it could have been a 6 at least, considering the rest of the wave too).
Now if you consider the impressive effect, the "Wow" factor, that stookeness that comes after something like this, then it should be scored higher. The thing is I don't think thats how scoring works on WCT. I believe it is more of a "squared" scoring.

What bugs me is comments saying the judges "would score a 10 if it was Toledo". I think it was underscored too, but saying as it was some favoritism, doesn't even make sense. It was better for brazillians for Kelly to win..

From the judges mouth it was an incomplete maneuver so no points for it. If he had landed on his feet they would have given him a 10.0.

I dunno.

I'm going to go with the, he was out of control and fell lucky, not skill/contorl, so that's not scored.

And what would you score a backside 360 and two back side off the lips ?

Did he stick a backside 360?

Kelly did say he was so forward after the 360 he felt he could've fell. But he continued on. So i guess no points for the attempted air and no points for the non-sticked backside 360. So in away the 4.17 for 2 backside off the lips ( one being under the lip ) seems about right from the judges. Some are saying once he laid down, nothing after matters.

Here's the head judge talking about scoring the wave. Slo-mo included

Kelly's video went viral and I think that is helping his new clothing brand, so we shouldn't cry too much for him

Kelly Slater never had any problem with the score and probably neither did any of the pro surfers. It's just the public wanabe judges who are making a big deal about the score.