The Decorated History of Quiksilver’s Young Guns

Whenever I hear “Young Guns” I’m immediately transported back to hearing INXS’s seminal 1982 sweeping electro masterpiece “Don’t Change” for the first time. 

The year was 2007 and Young Guns 3 was the DVD spinning in my parents’ Panasonic DVD recorder (remember them?).

Young Guns I and II were cool too, but mark three was Reynolds, Marzo, Wilson, Carrisa Moore, and Ry Craike at his peak; infantryman Garrette Parkes was ripping too, but he was still grom skinny.

The boys (and girl!) scored offseason Bali – rippable Canggu, Keramas and a few of the east coast waves before they’d been done to death – waves made for throwing fins, and even darted over to empty G-Land. It was a hi-fi smorgasbord, and I slurped it up like an avocado juice after a marathon session at the Racetrack. 

The Young Guns realising a dream.

Whilst Young Guns was the cinematic record of Quik’s home team, King of the Grom’s was their gift to nurturing the competitive surfers of tomorrow. Held every year in the high performance eden of the south of France, KOTG has/had an unrivalled record of uncovering surfers who would go on to become competitive powerhouses in years to come. Alejo Muniz and Wiggles Dantes won the first two in ’04/’05 respectively, the criminally underrated, coming soon to a WSL event near you, Matt Banting won in 2010, and Quik’s favourite son Mikey Wright took it out in 2012.

King of the Groms to King of the World.

Perhaps the most significant KOTG performance came from our current World Champ, Mr. Gabriel Medina, in 2009. Gabs blitzed the field with a performance that would likely have won him a (then) ‘CT held in similar conditions. His lowest scoring wave in the whole thing was a 9, and considering it was ’09, when aerial surfing and competitions didn’t collide all that much, it was truly was a “holy shit, this is the future” performance moment.

And, the rest of Gabby’s results are, shall we say, history. 

2015 saw Quik open their annual to both (all) genders and in doing so, revamp their Young Guns heritage.

They could’ve called it Monarch of the Groms, but that was far too Monarch of the Glen, which is about the most un-hip parallel you could draw, so the new, digital Young Guns was born. Since the re-brand the three surfers discovered have been Seb Williams (who’s just biding his time and healing his wounds before inevitably bursting through), Rio Waida, who will undoubtedly become the greatest surfer the Indonesian archipelago has ever seen, and Sammy Pupo, brother of and, as much as we love Miggy, the first genuine future world champ material to come from his bloodline.

Talk about un-dusting the future!

Phase one of Young Guns is in full effect, to enter post your clips to Instagram and tag @quiksilver + #YGSurfContest. We (being Stab) are picking our top eight fav entries and sending them onto the next round. 

For all the pertinent information on how to enter, click here!