When will the Pipe Masters resume? Surfing’s bizarre ‘cone of silence’

The World Surf League continues to treat its fanbase with a level of disdain unseen anywhere else in professional sport.

Eleven-time WSL Champion Kelly Slater won his heat on December 9. (Photo by Brent Bielmann/World Surf League via Getty Images)

The ill-fated return of professional surfing amid the COVID pandemic is turning the World Surf League into a laughing stock.

Sidelined since cancelling its season-opening event on the Gold Coast in March, the tour finally returned last week – and expectation couldn’t have been higher for fans as the traditional season-ending Pipe Masters became the launch event.

But after the opening day of competition was followed by weather conditions that kept the waves away, the WSL unexpectedly announced the event was being suspended because of a coronavirus outbreak at the site in Oahu, Hawaii.

Embarrassingly, league CEO Erik Logan and four staff members tested positive for COVID in a disastrous development given the tentative fashion in which Hawaii had welcomed dozens of professionals from all corners of the world to its shores.

That was five days ago. Since then the only communication from the WSL came from Logan on his Instagram page, where he promised to be transparent “through this incredibly challenging time”.

Since then there has been nothing. No updates on the WSL website. No messages on its social media channels and surf journalists have been met with a “cone of silence” when endeavouring to get any insight on if or when the event will resume.

To put it in context for an Aussie audience, it’s like AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan stopping the footy season because he caught COVID and then just silently disappearing for almost a week.

Added to the chaos is the halt to proceedings of the opening event of the women’s season.

Sally Fitzgibbons is waiting to surf her semi-final heat against Tyler Wright. (Photo by Keoki Saguibo/World Surf League via Getty Images)

After the tragic death of a local surfer at Maui where the women compete, it was announced the event would be moved to a new location to complete the four remaining heats.

Australian stars Tyler Wright and Sally Fitzgibbons were scheduled to meet in a semi-final but they’re still waiting to find out what’s going on six days later.

“The World Surf League has maintained that the best offence is deafening silence,” veteran surf writer Chas Smith wrote for Beach Grit.

“But what sort of public relations strategy is this? I’ve reached out to my internal sources, simply trying to prepare for an exciting pick-up, and been met with the same deafening silence.”

And all this time – while the world waits for answers – pros have been hitting the water to surf alongside each other.