Pipe dreams: life on the road in pursuit of surfing glory

His father, Justin King, adds: Kyuss is young, so is my other son, and you dont want to fall into a trap of just getting four turns to the beach. This is their time to be progressive and experience a lot of different waves and fine-tune their style. You want to be able to feel free to fall off and try new manoeuvres which you cant always do in comps.

Rebellious, backyard sport

The formation of the World Surf League three years ago has offered much-needed unity, structure and commercial value to an increasingly professionalised sport. Surfing has even been accepted into the Olympics in 2020, much to Shimookas joy. Though he warns the organisers must get it right because then and only then will surfing be legitimised as a top professional sport.

Surfing has a rich history, of course. Having originated in Polynesia, it was brought to Australia in 1908 before Duke Kahanamokus exhibitions at Sydneys Freshwater beach helped further broaden its reputation. Since then it has become a cornerstone of Aussie culture. The first surfing world championship was held at Manly in 1964, the International Professional Surfers world governing body was created in 1976 and by 1983 the Association of Surfing Professionals was formed.

Until recently the tour schedule was organised in piecemeal fashion by varying sponsors, each one owning the rights to a different event in the seasons calendar. However, following the financial crisis of 2007-08 sponsors had less money to invest, allowing the equity group ZoSea to take over and create the World Surf League. The WSL is now a slick operation with a digital-first approach to live broadcast, streaming more than 800 hours of surfing competition a year without any authentication barriers or paywalls.

Three years in, I think everyone would say we did the right thing, Hayden-Smith says. Weve become much more professional, weve figured out how to support ourselves without relying on the surf industry and its a much more refined product for the surf fans. I think theyre the ones whove benefited the most.

Womens surfing, junior surfing, big-wave surfing and longboard surfing are all given prominence alongside the main mens shortboard tour, and the prize money for men and women is representative of the number of entrants in each competition. Thisethos has delivered growing interest in all facets of the sport and better prospects for up-and-coming surfers.