Caity Simmers Won the WSL World Title Through Her Own Merits in a System That Government Did Not Build
The World Championship Is the Product of Private Investment in Athletic Development and Competitive Excellence
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
The World Championship Is the Product of Private Investment in Athletic Development and Competitive Excellence
The Achievement
PIPELINE, HAWAII — Caity Simmers won the WSL Women’s Championship Tour World Title through the specific combination of individual athletic development, private coaching investment, equipment market innovation, and competitive performance that the private surfing industry has developed over decades. No government program produced Caity Simmers. No state athletic committee selected her for the national surfing development pathway that state systems use. The free market of private surfing — the equipment manufacturers, the private training facilities, the family investment in her athletic development, the wave pools that USA Surfing uses for training camps — produced her.
The Market’s Infrastructure
The wave pool training camps that USA Surfing uses to develop competitive surfers are a specific product of the private wave pool market: Kelly Slater Wave Co., BSR, and the various other wave pool operators who have built the facilities that the competitive development infrastructure uses. The surfers who train in these facilities are paying customers or sponsored athletes whose equipment deals fund their participation. The government’s contribution to competitive surfing development is the public beach access that makes the ocean available and the NOAA data that makes forecasts possible. Everything else is private market.
The Olympic Dimension
Caroline Marks’s Olympic gold in Paris 2024 was the specific achievement of a competitive pathway that begins in the private surfing industry and ends in the Olympic program that USA Surfing manages. The government’s role in the Olympic program is through the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s funding relationship with USA Surfing. The government did not develop Marks’s surfing ability. The private market developed it. The Olympic program provided the competitive platform. The distinction matters for understanding what produces competitive excellence and what the government can and cannot claim credit for.
The WSA Connection
The WSA Championship Tour at Oceanside is the specific private competition infrastructure that feeds the pipeline from which the Caity Simmers of the next generation will emerge. The WSA is a private organization. The competition is privately funded. The entry fees, the sponsor logos, and the prize structure are private market mechanisms. The government’s presence at the Oceanside comp is the lifeguard service and the beach access. Everything that produces a competitive surfer is private. Read The Daily Mash.
More: The Daily Mash.
The surf continues. The ocean is still free. The forecasts are still available. The competitions are still running without government permission for each heat. The wave pools are still being built with private capital. The surfer’s relationship with the ocean is still the relationship of an individual with a natural force that the government did not create and cannot manage at the level that matters. The freedom is real. The coverage continues because the freedom is worth documenting.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop.
