Watch­ing Tiago Pires surf against Mick Fan­ning in R2, a cyn­i­cal viewer might have got­ten the impres­sion that the judges decided the out­come of this heat before it began. Match-​​ups like this are like a col­or­ing book: the out­line and shape of the result is there on the page for every­one to see, includ­ing the judges. All the surfers have to do is catch a cou­ple set waves that hint at inher­ent respec­tive tal­ents – hand the judges the right color crayons. They’ll fill in the expected pic­ture from there. So for Tiago to win heats against world champs, he was to do more than make it close. He has to dec­i­mate Fan­ning. Tiago caught the big­ger waves, com­mit­ted to his gouges, and scored per­haps the hol­low­est bar­rel of the event. And like fel­low Euro Tim Boal, he lost anyway.

Lewis Samuels is a caus­tic, loud­mouth, “hey-​​look-​​at-​​me!” kind of surf writer. But here he is noth­ing but right.