Cronulla Riots Round 2

This year I was extremely excited and honoured when Big Dav let me know that we would have the duty of writing the contest report for this years Shark Island Bodyboarding competition. If you are not familiar with this sport/pass time, it is the most prestigious bodyboarding event held in the ocean off Australia. When I first considered how I would approach the article I had grandiose plans about bringing the flowing, poetic beauty of the sports writing of Peter Roebuck to Bodyboarding and try and capture the passion and excitement that this competition evokes in everyone who sees it. However after one time consuming and verbose attempt, Dav and I got together and decided that pure entertainment at a level that the masses could appreciate was the best approach.

Unfortunately some of our low brow and over the top attempts at humour have incited quite a lot of rage in some of the reader ship, particularly those based in the Shire. So while we made the jokes as ridiculous and over the top to ensure that they were taken as just that, jokes, it seems that we have offended enough people to make Dave and I no longer welcome in the Cronulla waters and a ransom has been placed on our heads if so much as even check Suck Rock. To prove that we did not always intend it to be this way. Check this first draft that I smashed out a couple of months ago. 

The Shark Island Challenge is one of those few moments in each and every year where Bodyboarding can be truly regarded as a legitimate high skill sport. While Bodyboarding is persued as a noble pass time by hundreds of thousands of hellmen around this little globe of ours, there are precious little moments where competitive bodyboarders get to legitimately showcase their talent in a format that allows one mans achievements and skill to be held aloft above all others. On any day at various breaks around Australia high performance bodyboarding is being raised to greater echelons, sport is a lot more than mere levels of performance. It provides a platform for each mans ability and personality to be scrutinised as the strengths and weaknesses they take with them in to the water each time they go for a paddle, are magnified significantly. 

In the hallowed arenas where the highest level of human competition take place every act of courage, each moment of hesitation, the fear of failure and the desire and determination allow individual men to transcend the fact they are merely involved in a game or a hobby and be forever linked to a place, an action, a moment of time. In cricket they have the Lords and the SCG, Cycling has the Tour De France through the harrowing peaks of the Alps and Pyrranese, Tennis has Wimbledon and Soccer has the World cup. We my friends, have the Shark Island Challenge. While their other bodyboarding competitions happening at various places around the world (As I am writing this news of the GT’s win in .473729 ft waves in Europe have just come through) few posses the drama and ability to capture the imagination and evoke the feelings of pride and joy that this historic event seems to on a yearly basis. 

Since the contests inception in 1997 a plethora of boadyboardings most enduring moments have been born from men sliding along mountains of water on carefully crafted pieces of foam at this reveared and feared shallow patch of reef in Southern Sydney. 
LIST SOME AGREED APON MOMENTS

It was with these moments in their minds and dreams of greatness in their hearts that 16 of the most respected names in World bodyboarding congregated in Cronulla. However once the sea decided to start moving in the final stages of the extended waiting period names and reputations counted for nothing. It becomes an internal battle of patience and self belief as each man relies on his own strengths and the power of the ocean, his competitors are merely there as a convenience. Regardless of his past victories and successes each competitor paddled out to his heat, with zero points on his score sheet and in total silence, except for the sound of the ocean and such remarks as his competition may care to make.