Snaking can be a bittersweet experience, especially if you're a pro wave rider competing for survival. Lewy Finnegan has revealed what happened to him at the 2015 Front King, and what he plans to do in the future.
The sole Australian bodyboarder on the 2015 APB World Tour is sad and frustrated with what happened during a quarterfinal heat at El Fronton, in the Canary Islands. With 20 seconds to go, and after waiting a few minutes for his turn, Finnegan couldn't believe he was witnessing.
"I had been waiting for a long time and started paddling for the wave until I realized that my friend was powering across the inside of me only to snake the wave off me, do a backflip and get the score he needed," Lewy wrote on his Facebook page.
"I paddled in from the heat completely rattled about what had happened. I was probably the most devastated I had ever been from being knocked out in a competition. My former friend-turned-snake came in and apologized and I accepted his half-hearted apology, but I was burning up on the inside; I wanted to explode with anger."
Lewy Finnegan kept dubious feelings inside him for several days. He just couldn't forget it, even after reviewing the memories of that heat.
"I did learn a valuable lesson about competitions, though; Trust no one! Not even your best friends. Because people can do outrageous things when they're desperate. So that's probably the darkest side of competition that I've experienced first-hand," concluded Finnegan.
Is snaking part of professional bodyboarding and surfing? Should the judges penalize it? Should snaking be unofficially forbidden, based on a gentleman's agreement?