Clay Marzo Wins Day 2 Of 2024 Quiksilver Fest

You could walk outside this morning and immediately tell that the Quiksilver Festival would be on.

Daybreak brought clear skies and light offshore wind while yesterday’s short-period swell hung around. Why not run some heats?

Miky and Jeremy once again chose a theme of ‘big turns’ for today’s round. But remember, in 2024 turns are non-binary. A turn can be a turn, but an air can be a turn, too. In other words, the brief was to go as big as you can. The judges don’t want to see you milk one to the beach.

Instead of sharing the lineup with their teammates, the draw gets shuffled and the competitors surf with different people every round to keep things fresh. Each surfer holds on to one score each heat, which factors into their team tally.

Today, Clay Marzo put his entire team (it’s just him and Bobby) on his back in both a literal and figurative sense with one of the more fascinating turns you’ll see. Please, savor it.

Recently, Noah Beschen told us in his Stab Interview after signing with Swatch:

“Think about Clay Marzo. He made up those layback fling tails. If you don’t know anything about surfing and you see a bunch of surfers that look similar, then you see someone like Clay do something like that, you’d be like, ‘Whoa, what the fuck?’”

Noah was speaking rhetorically at the time, but his rhetoric was put to the test today. Most of the people on the beach surf. However, you could tell that some of them very much do not not.

I sat on the sand for that heat, and can tell you that Clay just different. People were baffled when he stood back up. Fair enough. The WSL hasn’t loved elongated bubble baths this year, unless you’re Italo in the finals. But in Clay’s case, falling backward is more of a feature than a bug.

It earned the highest score of the event thus far, a 9.17, and rocketed him and Bobby up the leaderboard.

Other highlights included Jackson Dorian stomping the best air thus far and Michel Bourez stinging a lip with the ferocity of a warrior tasked with defending a particular Greek state in the 8th century. Vahine Fierro came a few Tatiana Weston-Webbs away from landing turns that would have given her a score up there with Clay’s, but ended up riding out of a lesser one for a 6.83.

Tomorrow, we’re looking at less swell and a bit more wind while Thursday AM looks like it may be contestable. Friday, however, is a rainy and windy write-off — tough night for any of the beers at the Boardriders store in Capbreton on Thursday night for Quik’s Mercury party.

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Beyond that, the forecast keeps changing, but the weekend still has potential for cylinders.

We’ll keep you posted.