i’ve been watching the isa world championships early in the mornings for the past 8 days. cheering for japan, hawaii, and my 2 nephews Josh and Seth. yesterday was heartbreaking for me. i was yelling in front of my computer cheering Seth on, then watched as he made a huge mistake. a mistake i’ve made about 100 times in my competition days.
Seth was leading the heat with time running out. then he got super aggressive and did a paddle battle with the italian surfer and got an interference. that put him into 4th place in a snap. i saw it happen and knew the judges were going to call an interference on him. i was super bummed, but at the same time, thought it was fair. Japan’s Takumi Nakamura ended up winning the heat so i was very happy for that.
this was a right so the surfer with the inside position has priority. Seth is in white and should have pulled back. they made contact so they had to call the interference on him.
going from 1st to 4th in the last minutes of the heat hurts. Seth showed his emotions on his last wave. his dream of becoming ISA World Champion was gone. bummer.
this loss will make Seth stronger and smarter. when he comes back to hawaii, all i’m going to tell him is “good job boy!” i know he is hurting inside and doesn’t want to hear yet another person telling him “what the hell where you thinking???” but what really impressed me was right after his heat, he was back on the beach cheering on for Noah Mizuno that was competing in the next heat. it was great sportsmanship which i think is the key to becoming a great champion.
and after that, they had the team challenge which Hawaii won! so congratulations to the Hawaiian Team for winning the GOLD!
