The Great Bodyboarding Media Swindle?
by Rob Barber

Did you read the article in issue 67 about how to win a contest by Damian Prisk? Well Here Rob Barber relates what really happened at the event, some things don’t run as smoothly as they first seem!

This is the story of an article that should have run so smoothly but ended up getting so very complicated.

The plan was simple. Damian wins the national championships (and seemingly any other contest that he enters) year in, year out. So I thought that I’d shadow him for a day while he wins the English Nationals, then write about it as a bit of a photo-diary thing. The only stumbling block was that I was also the event contest director. But this wasn’t a problem, I new that I could multi-task to do both jobs and also trust my morals not to let one complicate the other in the mission for a good article. Unfortunately it ended up getting pretty messy.

To cut a long story short, the comp suffered from big crappy onshore surf so we decided to move it to Tolcarne. Damian arrived in good time, we staged a shot of him walking down the stairs to the beach, him checking the heat sheets after we’d made the draw so that he could figure out what time he was in the water, what the format for the event was and all that business. Then he checked the surf, got his equipment sorted and was ready to paddle out.

Damian cruised his first heat by sitting on the north side of the beach and catching the walled up right handers that had pretty good shape. In these sort of conditions Damian is pretty much unstoppable, his experience shines through every time. He always picks good waves, is always in position for the sets, never digs rail and manages to steer clear of interference situations from competitors. The article was almost wrtitng itself, another couple of pages filled - too easy.

Then the semi’s rolled round. The sun was out, Damian was feeling good. He’d found his rhythm and was ready to push it up a gear in order to deal with Damian Dinham and Lew Smart. So far, Prisky looks a different class to everybody in the contest except surprise entry Jack John’s. Jack is surfing really tight with his trademark smooth style. Should be interesting to see these two meet in the final. I quietly congratulate myself on what an interesting article this is going to make. ’The old master versus the new blood of JJ’, ‘Out with the old and in with the new’ or ‘Prisky serves notice’ are the phrases rattling around my head. It was all going too well.
I was getting ahead of myself, they were both in different semi finals and neither of them had even made the final yet!

A few people had seen ThreeSixty photographers Matt Hawken and Estpix following Damian around all day and asked me what the story was. I explained the how to win a comp article but made it clear that it didn’t make any odds to me whether he won or not because I would be writing a report on the event anyway. So back to the semi final. As it happened I was the senior judge on the panel. A set came through in the first minute and all four competitors took off at the same time. By complete accident fellow ThreeSixty employee and part time judge Jonny Roberts made a genuine mistake and under scored Damian’s first ride. As head judge I should have spotted the error and didn’t. The tide had dropped and the waves had got a lot worse, so determining the best bodyboarder was way harder. The heat finished and the results were tabulated. In first place was Damien Dinham, second Lew Smart with the shock result being third place, Prisky had been knocked out!

Now at this point I realised that an error had taken place because I’d judged the heat and new that it was close but Prisky had done enough to get through. So at the risk of looking as though I was trying to get Damian back in the comp for the good of my article I had to identify the problem and call a competitors meeting to explain the mistake that had happened. By this time Damian had packed up his kit and left the beach, to go to a meeting at Rip Curl. So I had to get him dragged out of there and back down the beach.

All very embarrassing, all very time consuming, many a raised eyebrow from the other competitors that there was a media scandal taking place - particularly as the original mistake and confusion was centred around another ThreeSixty employee - Jonny!

luckily in the end, Bodyboarders being bodyboarders they all saw that a genuine error had occurred, there were no ego’s or attitudes and everyone agreed that Prisky should be allowed back in to the event and they should have a five man final.

The final was over with in the first two minutes. In a clinical move Damian sat way outside everybody else, caught a four-foot right hander and boosted a sick ARS, landing back on the face before going straight in to a big roll. It was the highest scoring wave of the event with a near perfect score. Dai backed it up with a combo wave which scored in the above average region and that was that, the other finalists were left in his wake.

So this article just goes to show, there is no easy way to win a contest, you never know what’s going to happen.