Olympic surfers tout their ‘love boat’ after athletes arriving in Paris claim village beds are ‘anti-sex’

“You really feel like you’re fighting for your life”

Narrabeen surfer Nathan Hedge needs little to no introduction, a pint-sized fire-eater whose courage in waves of significance, From Cloudbreak to Pipe to Teahupoo, it’s legendary.

In 2022, he and Kelly Slater, and remember they were both well into middle age at the time, danced a rigadoon around world champion Filipe Toledo in beautiful six-foot Teahupoo barrels.

As Chas Smith reported,

Slater and Hedge traded wave after wave, big and perfect, with Toledo far behind having the right of way and refusing to paddle, one after the other.

Slater, with a barrel, couldn’t suppress his smile.

Hedge, barrel, unable to suppress a smile or strike a pose, clever, boss.

Toledo, without a barrel, had the right of way for fifteen minutes as Slater and Hedge alternated beneath him.

In the final seconds, the King of Saquarema swung on a baby tube and then slammed a plank into the canal.

In an interview with a regional Queensland newspaper, Hedge, along with Pipe Master Bede Durbidge, issued dire warnings to competitors in the run-up to the Games.

“You really feel like you’re fighting for your life,” Hedge said. “At the end of most other sporting events, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be alive. You’re not getting your limbs ripped off or cut and you’re not being saved.

“I dislocated my shoulder there. I had teeth pulled through my lower lip, I had cuts on my head. There were some horrible injuries in Tahiti. I waited for the next heat and watched guys get completely destroyed, put on the rescue sled and sent to the hospital and they postponed the event.

“Then you have to paddle back and go straight back into the Coliseum. People have died or been terribly injured. The trade-off is you can get the best wave of your life or the worst punishment of your life. You have to weigh it up.”

Bede Durbidge, meanwhile, was succinct, telling the newspaper:

“Someone could die during the Olympics.”