Gearóid McDaid
Gearóid McDaid is a pro surfer with ambitions of breaking into the world top 100 and qualifying for Tokyo 2020
IT had crossed Gearóid McDaid’s mind, of course. Flying to Japan for the recent World Surf Games, he knew that Kelly Slater was one of those who would be competing for Olympic qualification. There was a chance that he might have to face the 11-time world champion. It all came down to the luck of the draw.
But surely, the gods would be kinder. Slater had already won four of his world titles by the time McDaid was born and meeting him in that sort of environment would be like taking on Michael Jordan one-on-one on a basketball court or challenging Tiger Woods to 18 holes of match play. Even at 47, that’s the hold the American legend has on the sport he transcended.
However, as the draw was being made, McDaid saw his name come out next to the greatest surfer that has ever lived.
‘What did I think? I tried not to think about it too much,’ the Sligo native recalls of that weird moment at Kisakihama beach in Miyazaki.
‘I knew going over to the competition that Kelly Slater would be competing and there was a chance I could draw him. But I tried to stay as relaxed as possible, just focus on the competition. Of course, when the news broke that I would be surfing against Slater, I ended up getting heaps of messages on my phone. I had to turn it off.’
The young and inexperienced Irish surfer surprised quite a few people in Japan, though. He took the king of the sport to the limit. McDaid had secured the highest single wave score of the heat, 6.67 and, going into the final round, was in front of Slater – only to be pipped by him in the final moments by a margin of 0.6.
‘Yeah, I did well against him. I was winning going into the final round and just made a couple of little mistakes and ended up losing. But it was still a great experience to surf and test myself against Slater. Everyone is aware of what and who he is in our sport.’
There was little surprise within the Irish surfing community that McDaid performed so well against the best of all time. Since he claimed the Irish junior and senior title in the same year as a 16-year-old, there have been high hopes for the unassuming young Sligo man.
He did well enough against Slater to qualify for the next round but ultimately fell short in his aim of getting a ticket to Tokyo. Interestingly, Slater didn’t secure Olympic qualification either, finishing just outside the places. There will be a final chance for McDaid to qualify in next year’s World Surf Games, provisionally set for Australia in May.
‘My ambition for next year is to qualify for the Olympics. I really want to do that. It is going to give the sport such a platform, it will bring it even more into the mainstream and it will be great to be part of that,’ the 22-year-old states.
He does have another ambition for 2020. ‘Yeah, I also want to get into the top 100 in the world and get onto the WSL [World Surf League],’ he says with conviction.
The WSL was formed in 2015, taking control of the professional side of the sport from the Association of Surfing Pros (ASP), with the promise of taking surfing to the masses. Backed by a couple of former NFL executives, who are schooled in the marketing genius of that league, they seem to be making good on that promise.
Last year, the WSL signed a $30million broadcast deal with Facebook and they now boast more social media followers than either NHL Ice Hockey or ATP Tennis. According to one report, the WSL was the third mostwatched sport online in 2017, behind the NFL and NBA with more than
28 million hours of video content being consumed. The sport is no longer the preserve of the stereotypical laidback beach enthusiast.
So, getting on to the WSL is a pretty big deal. McDaid has spent the past two years on the World Qualifying Series tour, the second level of the WSL. ‘It’s going to be a long road, but I am determined to make it,’ he says confidently.
In one of his first events on the tour, in March of last year, McDaid underlined his potential by finishing third in Tenerife. ‘I had a couple of decent results, but it is about developing consistency and getting myself up to a level where I am competing regularly against the top guys.’
Experience is also key in competition. ‘A lot of times in a contest, you can go out and the conditions are less than perfect. Sometimes, you are going out in your heat and you are fighting against the ocean because the waves aren’t good. Someone goes out in another heat and he gets good waves. So, there’s a bit of luck involved but at the top end of competition, you have to make your own luck, too.’
This past season has taken him from Israel to Sri Lanka, Chile to Fistral Beach in Cornwall, Tenerife to Krui in Indonesia, where he recorded his best finish of the year, a 13th place. Indeed, he has seen some of the most exotic and beautiful places in the world. But the schedule is exhausting – and expensive.
‘It can be expensive, travelling all around the world. That’s the really tough part of this sport,’
McDaid admits. ‘I have two main sponsors now, Rip Curl and Monster, they have been a great help. But a lot of being on tour is trying to
buy flights, getting the money together to buy flights, things like that. It is definitely not superglamorous or anything, but it is the best job I could have.
‘If there’s a competition within Europe, it can cost up to €1,000 between flights, accommodation, living expenses and all of that. But if we have competitions in Japan or Indonesia or Australia, the flights alone can be more than €1,000. So, it can be tough, getting enough money to keep going.’
The love of the sport keeps him going, though. McDaid first went surfing as a fiveyear-old. His father, Ray, had grown up Ballyshannon, Co Donegal and had tried it as a youngster. He was keen that his kids try it, too. By ten, the bug had bitten him in a big way.
‘My dad used to surf in Rossnowlagh, so he brought us out at five and six years of age. When I was around 10, I took a real liking to it and wanted to do it seriously. That was the start. I started competing at 11 and things just went from there. I got a few decent results at national and international level as a junior and it has just kept building.’ Surfing has exploded in this country over the past decade and revitalised seaside resorts like Bundoran and Lahinch, with thousands of people out in the chilly waters on the west coast every weekend. McDaid developed his talent on the famous ‘Peak’ wave in Bundoran and even though he has been all over the globe in search of good waves, it remains top of his list.
‘My favourite break is still the Peak, it has to be.
It’s the most consistent wave we have and when you get a good wave at the Peak, there’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world,’ he explains.
The west coast’s reputation for waves is starting to reach a wider audience. A couple of years ago, Australian legend Mick Fanning, who took Slater’s crown as the world’s best surfer, arrived in Donegal to trace his family roots. McDaid got to show Fanning around for a week, taking him to some of his favourite spots.
‘I got to hang out with Mick and his crew when they came here, that was pretty sweet,’ he recalls. But Ireland’s issue will always be the weather and the chill in the ocean. The howling North Atlantic wind, the constant rain, the nip in the air, all of those things conspire to make life as a professional surfer a little difficult in this country.
‘It can be harder, yeah, because it is colder, for a start. And there are more storms on the coast,’ McDaid says of being a pro surfer and living in Ireland. ‘Sometimes, it can be hard to get yourself motivated in the winter when it’s stormy outside or there’s a freezing temperature.
‘In somewhere like Australia, you can just go out in your board shorts. That’s not the case here. But I wouldn’t live anywhere else. The waves that we get here, when the surf is good, are among the best in the world. The sport is growing in Ireland, like surfing is growing all over the world. The water is getting a little busier, you can definitely see that, but it is so cold here, that it will never get very busy.’
And when McDaid insists that Ireland has some of the best waves in the world, he is speaking from experience, as he has danced on some of the most famous swells around the globe. Back in July after competing for Ireland in the European Championships in Portgual, he went to Skeleton Bay in Namibia.
‘That was a crazy trip, and a crazy place,’ he remembers. ‘We had to fly in from Johannesburg, but the plane couldn’t land one day because it was cloudy. Apparently, the planes don’t land there if there is cloud. We went back to Jo’burg and had to wait for the cloud to clear.
‘But it is a crazy wave, and the sort of wave that everyone should surf at least once in their lives. That is why I had to bite the bullet and do it this year. It was an unforgettable experience.’
When faced with a massive wall of water, as he was in Skeleton Bay, McDaid says that he has no particular mental trick to keep himself calm in the middle of a wave.
‘When there is a particularly big swell, or when I know there is going to be a big wave, I try not to think about it too much, because the last thing you want to be in the middle of a big swell is nervous or panicked. I just try to be calm and just do what I have to do.’
Growing up on the waves of Strandhill, McDaid’s inspiration came locally in the Kilfeather brothers, Andrew and Stephen. ‘They were two people I definitely looked up to, and a few surfers around Bundoran too. There’s a few there that have been inspirations to me.’
With the WQS season concluded (the WSL is coming to an end next month with the world-famous Pipeline Masters), McDaid will satisfy his competitive urge around Ireland’s west coast in the coming weeks.
Bundoran. Mullaghmore, Strandhill, where he released Over the Ledge – the latest surf movie he worked on with Clem McInerney – on Friday evening. It’s a chronicle of his wave-chasing last winter, filmed around Bundoran and Lahinch with some footage from the Canaries thrown in for good measure.
Come the New Year, McDaid will be back on tour, criss-crossing the globe in a search for ranking points to break into the top 100 and get a coveted place on the WSL. And there’s another opportunity to qualify for Tokyo.
If the waves are good, surfing is likely to be one of the must-see events at next year’s Olympics. McDaid hopes to be part of the jamboree. Who knows? There may even be a chance to renew rivalries with the greatest of them all in Tokyo.
It’s tough getting money to keep going. It’s not super glamorous but it’s the best job I could have