The Comp Thread

Jeremy Flores is awaiting a ruling from the ASP Disciplinary Committee after having a public meltdown in the judging tower at J-Bay. Worse still, it’s a decision that could boot J-Flo off tour for 2015 – if he’s suspended from upcoming events.J-Flo lost his round two heat to Sebastian Zietz at the J-Bay Open in the closing minutes. Seabass narrowly took the lead with two minutes to go, J-Flo applauded the judges’ score (sarcasm, lol) and needed an attainable 6.07, but a closeout barrel ended it and he paddled to the keyhole in a righteous fury. Then he ran up the beach, threw his board on the deck and continued to get all nasty in the judges quarters. He had an opinion to share, fuelled by a number of close heats not going his way this year, but his choice of words was reportedly flavoursome.Craig Jarvis wrote for Stab, “He came out the water bristling, and continued to bristle all the way up to the tower, where his board being thrown onto the deck made such a loud noise that it sounded like some sort of structural damage had happened.“Then there was a torrent of angry, abusive words aimed at the judges. Grannies tut-tutted down below, parents put their hands over their kids’ ears, and security went scrambling, eventually placating the situation.“As everyone watched closely the ASP closed ranks and went into a huddle. Jeremy returned. The huddle broke. It was announced that Jeremy had apologised to the ASP and that a disciplinary committee would deal with the matter. Thus ended Jeremy’s African adventure.”Seabass seemed surprised he got the score, too. “He left me needing a 6.5 at the very end. It was just a really good wave, I didn’t go too H.A.M. on it, I kind of babied it,” he told Pete Mel in his post-heat interview. “I thought I was going to pay the price and maybe not get it [the score]. But I knew it was right there and yeah, luckily they saw it my way and got me the score. Jeremy had that last chance and you know, I thought it was a fair heat.”
<div class="wp-caption alignnone"> J-Flo sarcastically applauds the judges during his round two loss against Seabass. Photo by Kolesky/Nikon/Lexar.