The Vic is back! In spite of challenging conditions, ie small waves, and lots of trough and rocks, the riders made it look surprisingly good. It was a lot of work to ollie one foot mini slop and get good air, but that is what they had to do. There were so many wavelets, that rides materialized at the last millisecond, and the riders had to adjust to changes on the fly. Good rides seemed to appear just a few feet from shore and pure luck had a lot to do with it.
In the Pro Finals, it was the match-up of the year, Johnny Weber versus Blair Conklin, and they traded ollie, for ollie, each trying his utmost to boost just a little bit higher or with better form. Out of nowhere a wave-of-the-day bump appeared and John was closest to it when it did. From that single opportunity he kept his speed up the double trough to the face and boosted a clean 4’ air drop to the sand with solid balance. That was it, from then on it was a pressure pot for Blair to find a better wave. In the end, with Johnny chasing Blair up the beach, Johnny snapped a spray toward Blair, just as he was turning around, catching him right in the face with a huge fan. It was emphatic to say the least. The judges were chuckling and the tension dissolved into hoots of laughter. Mission complete, victory assured, the quiet one had slain the social giant, and the drama was palpable as the two shook hands walking back up the sand. It was a beautiful thing. It was a huge vindication for Johnny Weber who had been robbed of a victory a few years earlier, that time in huge wave conditions, when he was leading by a mile. It was a huge victory for his hometown, Dewey Beach, where Johnny developed his skills. And a huge victory for all East Coast skimboarders who are very experienced in this type of challenging conditions.
In the Women’s Pro event, we saw an awesome matchup between 2019 Champion, Amber Torrealba, and Florida’s Sophia Nguyen. Sophia brought a whole ‘nother level to women’s skimboarding. It was quite something to watch. We had not seen a woman skim at that level since the days of Amber Cottle. We expect to see her on the top level of the podium for many years to come.
Epic matchups, veteran riders against youths, locals against friends and teammates was not unusual. It made for some very difficult judging, trying to parse out the smallest of differences in style and completion. Having fun with it was the call of the day. Many heats were decided on the last wave, so you had to keep the positive outlook going or you were going to go down.
We were particularly stoked with the full schedule approach, finally abandoning the strategy of letting the pros go when they wanted. It was fairly obvious that it would be best in the morning, so Pros were up first. The judges were ready, and everyone knew when they would be going right from the opening horn. Expect this to be the same next year. The schedule strategy was a COVID necessity, to help keep the crowds as minimal as possible. And it worked very well, so we were stoked with that. So far, no reports of anybody contracting COVID or a variant at the contest. It was a risk because the new variant is so darn contagious, that even open-air venues are suspect in some transmissions.
The live feed and real time scoring was working very well, though it took a lot of help from Frank Mead to keep the judges from panicking every time the pads failed to take a touch due to greasy hands, or improper technique. Thank you Clay of Premierskimboardleague.com, you did a great job of setting up the live feed. This also allowed more folks to stay home and watch from a safe distance.
The live scoring allowed us to keep the flow going all day long with very quick changeovers. The Vic is a work of art, always getting better, always a function of a lot of good people doing their best to find the best riders of the day. Now riders know exactly where they stand in real time, and it is a huge new tool to help riders see what the judges like from all the data collected and it’s available to everyone.
Thank you to the community of Laguna Beach, the community of skimboarders and fans worldwide. YOU made this the greatest contest ever, out of the toughest conditions. (At least for us totally spoiled West Coasters) YOU donated a record purse for the pros, YOU put Laguna on the map, once again, as the Skimboarding Capitol of the World. THANK YOU! Final tally on the Pro Purse, split proportionally between the women contestants, and the men based on how many entered, was $11,800. This is at least double the highest pro skimboarding purse that we could recall.
Thank you to all our sponsors who donate money, meals, rooms, gift certificates, prizes and a lot of good will to make all the prize bags bulge with goodies. They are as follows: Hobie Sports, The Ranch, The Lost Pier Café, Sector Nine Skateboards, Forest Plywood, Gooch Clothing, Active Culture Natural Foods, Glide Socks, Kung Fu Tonic, Celsius Live Fitness Drink, Skim Chicks Women’s Skimboarding Group, Ginas Pizza, Laguna Surf and Sport, Zinka Sunscreen, La Sirena Mexeco Eatery, Freak Traction, Rasta Taco Eatery, Don’t Care Domeware, and Freestyle Watches. Tell me that is not one huge number of big sponsors!!!
Thank you Frank Mead for pulling all these guys together for the Vic!
Thank you to the illustrious judges, anchored by “Mr. Heritage”, Conley Ware, who had just come off his second hip replacement a week before. His experiences as diver, ie platform diver, of world class caliber, is the basis for our scoring system working so well. WE have had very, very few disagreements about scoring, and we are particularly proud of this achievement. This contest was an especially difficult test of that system, as it was super hard judging conditions, and we had maybe two disappointed contestants all day.
The final decision, on any disagreement over scoring or interference, is the purview of the judges and ultimately the head judge. Because of the obvious possibilities of bias, the decision should not rest with the contest organizer, who is obviously very invested in the performance of his own riders and should not be entrusted with the final decisions about scoring or interference calls.
As is The Vic tradition, we ended with the youngest groms, our future champs, skimming into the sunset. You can’t ask for a more perfect ending.
Thank you again everybody who participated. It was good to get together again. Thank you for coming. Congratulations to Mr. John Weber and Sophia Nguyen, The Vic champions.
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