Quote Blog: The World Tour

“The answer to that question is no, surfing on the tour is not merely as rewarding as shredding with your buddies” – Kelly Slater during an interview with Stab Magazine The spot lite of surfing has shined its way over to different things over the few most recent years. Instead riders releasing photos of themselves on monster waves to gain publicity, the surfers are now all about winning the big competitions as a way to get their name out. There are many different kinds of competitions in surfing. There are ones that are only known by the local community that surrounds and those that are part of the ASP World Tour. ASP is an acronym for association of surfing professionals; this includes the top 35 ranked surfers in the world for both men and women. The world tour consists of ten stops around the world touring from east to west, visiting the all the best surf spots in the world with the ability or running an event. Because so many of the most beautiful breaks are in such rural areas and cannot provide the recourses and basic living supplies in order to sustain a world-wide competition, some spots have to be passed. An example of this is Skeleton Bay, Africa. Skeleton Bay is known as the longest ride a surfer can find; more or less an endless tunnel of water shooting left along the slanted coast of this bay. However, it is in the middle of the desert and one needs an offroad-going vehicle with additional gas storage in order to make it there. Below is a picture of surfer Koa Smith inside on of the longest barrels in surfing history which happens to be from Skeleton Bay otherwise known as the "Diamond of the Desert".

In another interview with Stab Magazine pro surfer Jordy Smith, another member of the tour, talks about his incident with the ASP officials suing him for wearing his Red Bull cap up on the podium after his victory at the Hurley Trestles Pro in California. “That’s a headline you’ll only hear in 2014” states Kirstin, a journalist for Stab. Jordy was sued $50,000 for doing so. He narrowly escaped the fine and was able to keep his well-deserved winnings. This was Jordy’s response to when Stab asked him how it all went down. “When I was standing there before going on the podium, there had been a miscommunication. I’m not too sure exactly, but if you’d signed your contracts before a certain point then you’re allowed to wear your Red Bull hat on stage. But if you have new contracts, signed after the date, you can’t. They weren’t sure about my contracts so I was like, “Dude I’m going to take part, I’m going to wear my hat up there.” Then they said, “Hey, you know you’re going to get a $50 grand fine, then? I was like, “Okay… I’m pretty sure I know what my deal is, and if you’re going to give it to me, then yeah, I’ll go ahead and take it.”” Its situations similar to this one that makes top athletes like Kelly Slater, the author of the quote above, hate going along the tour, but the recently increased fame and rewards from both tour money and personal sponsers make it all worth it. The picture below is of Jordy Smith sporting his Red Bull cap on the top of the podium victim of a champagne shower by runner up John John Florence who is one of Jordy's best friends and top competitors.