"Absolutely disgusting," one person posts on Instagram. The backlash online is almost as instant. Another voice cheers, "Woohoo! Yeah, Ty!"
As she stands, someone on the beach hoots in support. With roughly 12 minutes remaining in her heat, Wright stops the timer, tucks her board under her arm and runs into the Pacific.
I never thought I would see any top surfer be brave enough to take a stand." "My friend, Chelsea, a Black surfer from Santa Cruz, texted me, 'Are you watching the surf contest? You won't believe what Tyler is doing for us.' I am not kidding, I cried. "I get chills just picturing it," says Selema Masekela, a longtime action sports broadcaster and one of the most high-profile Black men in surfing.
#Mikey wright surfer pro
TV cameras broadcasting the Tweed Coast Pro pull back from her face: On the bottom of her surfboard, in black lettering that stretches from rail to rail, Wright has written, "BLACK LIVES MATTER."įor nearly eight minutes - each second representing one of 439 First Nations people killed in police custody in Australia since 1991 - Wright's heart races as she kneels, alone and apart from her peers. The wind blows the wisps of hair curling around her face, but Wright holds silent and still. She props her white tri-fin against her left knee and raises her right fist high above her head. Instead, she starts the timer on her watch and bends to kneel in the sand. Her competitors are already out in the lineup, but the two-time world champion doesn't move to join them. Wright steadies her breathing as an air horn signals the start of her heat. It's September, early spring in the Southern Hemisphere, and the offshore breeze is humid and brisk as the world's best surfers, including Wright, compete for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. TYLER WRIGHT STANDS alone near the water's edge at Cabarita Beach in New South Wales, Australia, a navy competitor's jersey pulled snugly over her wetsuit. How world champion Tyler Wright came back from a crippling virus to change surfing forever
#Mikey wright surfer upgrade
Maybe not for long though, Mikey Wright is back in the water.Įveryone’s favorite Australian cowboy wildcard just put this piece out and it is merely a sample of what’s to come, and it can’t come soon enough.You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser I mean, doesn’t it feel like it’s been quiet? Aside from the griping and whining we’re all doing about closed beaches while the whole world suffers some sort of trauma caused by this quarantine, the vibe in competitive and creative surfing is…well, tame. Mikey Wright is surfing’s perpetual wildcard. The hunt for the wildcard became a thing between us all, and whether they knew it or not, we were always looking for wildcards in our employees, interns, contributors, visitors, clients, friends and enemies - who was gonna be the wildcard? Who was gonna surprise us? We all caught on to it, and becoming a wildcard could be as simple as cracking an unexpected early beer to break the monotony to pitching an insane idea to pulling something new on our ramp out of nowhere or blowing off a meeting to go surf - which was never frowned upon if done in a wildcard manner. Someone who was going to break the cycle. Kai Neville used to walk around our old offices on sleepy days looking for the day’s wildcard.