We’re here. Surfing is in the Olympics (again)…like tomorrow. Let’s call the Japan run a mulligan. Everyone was wearing masks; doesn’t count. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve offered mixed reviews on our inclusion in the games. We don’t need the validation of the Olympics to be complete, etc. Our culture isn’t fully formed any more tomorrow because we held the torch than it was 20 years ago.

And yet, something about the setup at this particular year’s games amuses me as the perfect metaphor for surfing’s relationship to the rest of the competitive landscape of sport. Tomorrow we’re in the big show…but a few thousand miles away. So many time zones into the future, calculating the call time our esteemed brand ambassadors (that’s the brand of surfing, btw) will wake up to do the broadcast in New York, or Connecticut or Paris at the NBC Studios, gives me a headache. Born into this world as outcasts, and outcasts we remain.

I’ve started to see clips and updates of the opening ceremonies from Paris, and with no disrespect to the most romantic city in the world, our lifestyle has never looked so chic. Tahiti, despite the whole scaffolding fiasco that now seems to be remedied, is by far the sexier of the two locations. And not for the Parisians' lack of effort. Sure, a coffee and a French cigarette is nice, but have you ever eaten sushi (speared) from the reef where you’re about to surf for Olympic gold? Doesn’t have the same…what’s the phrase? Je ne sais quoi.

Instead of the sexless cardboard beds the other athletes are getting with their French bed bugs, the surfers will be floating aboard a 420 foot freighter turned cruise ship with actual aluminum bed frames, floating at The End of the Road. Even the video package NBC rolled out introducing the surf competition made it look….well, de rigueur to be competing in the Olympics. Are we taking notes?

My biggest gripe with our Olympic inclusion has always been that what we do is so much more than just an act of competitively riding a wave, but since they put us in Tahiti while the rest of the world is in Paris, we’re allowed to assume a familiar role: included, but still “the surfers.” Like in high school when the jocks were here, and the surfers were, well, the surfers were always over there. Or not there at all..

The surfers are in Tahiti. Surfing Teahupoo. With friends. Where we should be. We’ll have to sip that French red in the City of Light another time. Maybe after all the jocks leave. Leave the bed bugs and bring us home gold. Bonne journée.—Travis Ferré

[Above art: Back Out (1979) by Robert Rauschenberg]