While we’re on the subject…competition! In case you haven’t tried it, Hannah’s recently gone there on your behalf, and she’s rapidly finding out what a triple-edged sword it can be. You THINK you’re ripping, everyone TELLS YOU you’re ripping, you KNOW you’re the best … and you come third in your heat. Imagine going through this ego-mincer for a living. Well, over the coming week, the citizens of the fine city of Newcastle are about to see it in all its awkward glory, as a few handfuls of surfers try to jump levels — from the Challenger series to the big game. They have a week to show it or blow it. Who are they, and how will they survive this nonsense?

In the past four days, we’ve seen a classic, vaguely farcical, perhaps even hilarious story play out at the very top end of organised competitive surfing. On the surface it looks pretty simple: the WSL CT pros are cut up over a new Olympic selection criteria issued by the International Surfing Association for LA28. The criteria looks like a kick in the teeth for the CT crew, limiting their selection to just 10 of the 48 slots on offer. Couple that with the fact that nobody at the ISA asked for their opinion, and blammo! Angry surf stars everywhere. But behind this brouhaha lies a deeper saga: an epic, long running power play over what’s become the most precious prize in the sport: an Olympic gold medal. Nick and Hannah go to town on it with the help of the fantastic and very clear-minded Leo Fioravanti, who knows from experience what a medal shot feels like.

2026 is pro surfing’s 50th anniversary, and it’s been fifty years of epic carnage. 28,000 surfers. Over a billion dollars of investment. You can love it, hate it, or just not care about it, but you can’t really deny it — since 1976, the world tour has grown from very scrappy beginnings into one of surfing’s most potent cultural forces. In these special episodes, Hannah and I look at what’s driven this wild ride, who’s done the driving, and why they even bothered. This one delves into how the groundwork was semi-accidentally laid for a tour to occur — sponsored by a cigarette company, an enthusiastic vodka marketer, and the Australian bottlers of a black fizzy drink.

It’s not secret to anyone who’s tried it: comedy is HARD. And given the number of people who’ve tried it and failed, comedy based on surfing is even harder. It’s weird, because we all know a heap of funny shit happens in the water all the time, but how do you dig it out and show it to the world? Enter Luke Cederman, the dryly witty NZ goofyfoot responsible for the Raglan Surf Report. Luke’s skits lampoon pretty much every social pretension in the culture, and he rarely spares himself a bit of mockery in the process. Nick and Hannah have been waiting for a chance to drag Luke into the studio, and now his home town is suddenly a WSL mega CT venue! So let’s fucking go!

The gossip mills began churning about a year ago. Liberty Brands, the retail curator arm of US private equity play Authentic Brands — which owns most of the surf industry’s most familiar brand names — fell over, taking well over 100 “surf” shops with it. This seemed the final straw for an industry that had done its best to define surf culture for 60 years. But… was it? Or was it part of a much needed clean out of the old to make way for the new-ish? Culture vultures Nick and Hannah, with the help of special guests Ryan Scanlon from needessentials and the inimitable Josh Kerr, try to figure out just what happened here, and if this is a question of scorched earth or surprisingly green shoots.

Four attacks. Numerous in-water sightings. A whole coastline of surfers wondering — who’s next? It’s safe to say this has not been the January anyone in NSW was expecting. But what’s behind the past few days of mayhem, and the strange stillness that’s followed as surfers stayed out of the water despite very solid, very non-January surf? Turns out the animal involved has changed its behaviour for a very simple and predictable reason. Nick and Hannah dig into that reason and the wild circumstances it’s triggered. See below for links to some info we used to present this episode — they might just help.

https://www.sharksmart.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1447730/Bull-Shark-fact-sheet.pdf

https://www.jcu.edu.au/news/releases/2025/july/climate-shifts-extending-sydneys-bull-shark-season

https://fish.gov.au/docs/SharkReport/2023_FRDC_Carcharhinus_leucas_Final.pdf

“Longevity.” It’s a word more and more surfers are throwing around as an aspiration. Well how about eternal youth? At 82, Bonza Bob McTavish has a deeper well of surfing memory than maybe any other surfer in the world, yet he still exudes the stoke and buzz of someone who lives right here with us, in the moment. Truly, he is our very own Santa Claus, yet the gift he gives us is his very own self. Nick and Hannah spent a fabulous afternoon in Bob’s shaping bay tucked away in Byron’s industrial estate, where McTavish and his son Ben have assembled the most highly talented pack of Millennial/Gen Z surfboard workers we’ve ever seen, and listened to Uncle Bob tell us how he got here.

When winter comes to the north shore of Oahu, every swell is shrouded in myth. The Pipeline! Sunset! Waimea Bay! The outer reef spots that nobody ever actually names. But these swells and spots are just like anywhere else. They’re ridden and held down by human beings, just like you and us, and the experience is more down to earth than most of us might imagine. Mark Healey is as down to earth a human as you’d ever want to meet, yet he also hunts barrels at Waimea lefts, surfs the Pipeline with 25 years of knowledge behind him, and is a generational surfing talent in this hallowed surf zone. Nick and Hannah got hold of him after he’d spent a bit of pre winter time in NZ with his mates shooting red deer, and talked with him about Valhalla.

Recently the World Surf League has been dropping world champ comebacks like they’re on sale. Carissa, Stephanie, John, Gabriel! That’s 19 world titles rolling up almost out of the blue for the 2026 tour. They’ll change the game for sure. But in the meantime, what about the current men’s champ? Universally hailed as a great winner at Cloudbreak back in September, the magnificently chill Yago Dora has nevertheless not featured in any Western surf media since that win. Nick and Hannah thought this was very weird, so we asked Yago if he’d mind joining us to explore his life as a super-kid in Florianopolis, Brazil, how he made the transition from free-surf star to elite competitor, stepping out on his own at title level, and how he produced that searingly confident Finals performance.

It’s a sporting truism: once you’re a world champ, you’re forever a world champ. But that’s not all you are, and in this classic extended-play run-on from our chat with him during the WSL Finals, Kelly lets his mind wander freely across the new landscape of his life. Hip surgery — which he put off for years while resolving his time on the CT — is on the near horizon, his businesses are sending him to actual work, the grommet is running around all over the place. It’s a long way from the retirement he once imagined, hanging out in Cocoa Beach going fishing — or is it? Here’s an unusually relaxed and revealing yap with a surfer we’ve all known forever.