We Shouldn't Be Friends

San Clemente, California, has two town centres. The first and most commonly known is a shop-lined street leading down to the pier. The second is a slightly tangled old industrial area not far from the railroad — the dusty home of some of the world’s great surfboard companies. Right in the middle of it is Matt Biolos, who after 40 years in the business has turned his labels Mayhem and …Lost into icons known to surfers worldwide, an achievement he refers to as “Revenge of the Nerds”. Matt is nothing if not dryly witty, so Hannah and Nick invited him to explain just how this all happened, and what it’s like to be  badgered by seemingly a quarter of the CT for their quivers.

Sometimes things happen. Sometimes they just blow up. This week pretty much the whole sporting world — including surfing — was blown up by an ad for an American sports prediction site featuring one of its key investors, the actress Sydney Sweeney, nude except for various pieces of sporting equipment. “Just sport,” cooed no-clothed Sydney, gazing down from a basketball hoop. The appeal was naked, the response was instant. But while it was kind of epic seeing so many champion women athletes telling Sydney what was sport and what wasn’t, was sport even the point? Nick and Hannah turned to the ultra-sharp Dr Rebecca Olive to help untangle the carnage.

Great surfing, like we just watched at the WSL CT Fiji Pro, can seem like magic to the rest of us. What are they DOING out there? All that timing, power and flow, coloured by small yet unmistakable flashes of individual style — it doesn’t come out of nowhere.

Matt Grainger, Manly surf school and Surfers Gym owner and high end pro coach, has been fascinated by this craziness pretty much all his extensive surfing life. Here he joins Hannah and Nick for a deep dive into the skills that define elite surfers — and how he helps the groms along that path. 

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The better half of the WSBF team is on site at what might prove to be the CT event of the year. But there’s so much more to Teahupo’o than terrifying competitive angst and the most Instagram-worthy barrels in human history. This place has been seducing people for a millennium or more. Following an afternoon on the pre-contest beers, Hannah tortures Nick with some lyrical descriptions of the South Pacific vibe, the way the ocean draws off the reef, the little fishies darting about the lineup, and gives us all some insight into how the surfers are gathering themselves for what lies ahead.

The better half of the WSBF team is on site at what might prove to be the CT event of the year. But there’s so much more to Teahupo’o than terrifying competitive angst and the most Instagram-worthy barrels in human history. This place has been seducing people for a millennium or more. Following an afternoon on the pre-contest beers, Hannah tortures Nick with some lyrical descriptions of the South Pacific vibe, the way the ocean draws off the reef, the little fishies darting about the lineup, and gives us all some insight into how the surfers are gathering themselves for what lies ahead.