Latest news with #HughieVaughan
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
One-Handed Backflip: Best Wave Pool Air Ever?
Before most people could buzz from their morning coffee, 18-year-old Hughie Vaughan was bouncing off the walls. Yesterday, the 18-year-old Australian, fresh off winning Stab High Japan and entering the 2025 Swatch Nines at the 11th hour, paddled out for the first session of the day and landed one of the most inverted, off-axis airs ever seen in Waco's famed wave pool. Hughie greased a one-handed stalefish backflip — with no straps or winch pull — right in front of slack-jawed filmers. When the clip circulated on social media, plenty of heavyweights chimed in on Hughie's accomplishment. From Mick Fanning to Julian Wilson to Mateus Herdy to Paul Fisher, they were all stunned. "There's a new standard," Julian Wilson said. "That was unbelievable." A few hours later, while eating banana cream pie before his last session of the day, the grom got another surprise as he scrolled through his phone. 'No way,' Hughie exclaimed. 'Tony Hawk just followed me.' The living skate legend dubbed Hughie's move 'The Stale Fish Flipper' and instantly gave the young surfer major kudos. This is the kind of cross-pollination Swatch Nines strives for. It's a surf, skate and BMX playground where ideas are shared, attempted and lauded. The unexpected is celebrated, and Hughie's rotation is already being hailed as arguably the best air ever done in a wave pool. Certainly, Jacob Szekely, Matt Meola and Mikey Wright could add their names to the hat, but a one-handed backflip without straps or a winch? That has to take the cake. '(Hughie) didn't even know what he did today,' Chippa Wilson said. 'He didn't know he just did the best air ever done in a wave pool.' Due to the format of the event, things like Hughie's wave can go down at any moment. In removing the constraints of competition like heats and scores, organizers created a caldron of creativity. Head to the bathroom and you're liable to miss an air. Grab a sandwich and you won't see the boardslide. But you'll hear the cheers. You can watch for a while, see nothing land, but then the remarkable happens when you glance away. 'It's wild—there's nothing else like it,' said BMX star Kevin Peraza, fresh off his recent X Games bronze medal in Tokyo. 'You've got creativity, and a bunch of different athletes feeding off each other—it's non-stop.' Hughie's air has been the most impactful move from Swatch Nines Surf thus far, but plenty of highlights have gone down over the last two days: A 200-ton crane hoisting an illuminated 8-foot aluminum ring, surfers flying through (and crashing into) said ring, boardslides on floating rails, winch-whipped full rotations and a barrage of technical airs. In the last light day two, Robbie "Rasta Rob" McCormick stomped a huge backside 540 off the winch on the left, and a few minutes later, Jacob Szekely landed a lofty tail-high 360 (sans winch) with a burned finger he sustained while holding a flare on an earlier attempt. Gotta pay to play, they say. One of the biggest changes between last year's inaugural event and this year's edition is the enormous floating skate ramp and rails suspended by the crane. Surfers have three rails to choose from: a straight rail, a kink rail and an arched wallriding feature. And after just a few sessions, things are already clicking. Mason Ho, Noah Beschen and Zeke had several clean attempts on the left. Cam Richards, battling bruised knees and bloody shins, has also been a standout. He's glided across the kink rail numerous times and completed a clean fakie boardslide over the wallride, a move so sweet that Nines founder Nico Zacek ran the length of the pool to embrace him. If nothing else, the Nines challenge surfers. It makes them put into practice things that normally only exist in a deep, dark corner of their brains. Even for creatives and technical maestros like Mason and Chippa, who have seen and done much in their careers, Waco offers something different. 'I've loved trying wallrides or any sort of boardslides in surfing,' Mason said. 'I've loved it just because I'm a little crazy and there's rocks or something in the way. It's so fun to tear a wave apart, but now it's like, I'm in the water, then out of the water. It's all about the combo. 'Last year, they had the rail and the hamster ball, and it was one of the funnest events I've been a part of," he continued. "This year is even more special and it feels like just the beginning. Last year, we used this tractor for the rail. And it was at the very end of the wave. Now, we've asked them to move it to the middle and gone way bigger with the crane. They've gone to the next level and it's like a dream come true.' 'I've never done pool rails, but I did skate a lot when I was a kid,' Chippa said. 'And this was the closest feeling to hitting your first rail as a kid. It's crazy. A front boardslide feels so sick. So when I first hit this setup, I was so fired up. I almost stuck it and I just needed to go again.' Call it novel, experimental, random or radical. Stuff is happening at Swatch Nines. One-Handed Backflip: Best Wave Pool Air Ever? first appeared on Surfer on Jun 25, 2025
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Internet-Breaking Aussie Surfer Hughie Vaughan Lands New Sponsor
Last month, 18-year-old Hughie Vaughan launched into the mainstream-verse for his one-handed backflip during the Swatch Nines Surf event in Waco. The algorithm soaked up the footage like water on a sponge, and everyone wanted a piece of Hughie. Tony Hawk lauded his "stalefish flipperr". Even The Today Showand The Guardianpicked it up. But Hughie has no-so-quietly been killing it in the ocean years before he blew up for a wavepool air. Born and raised on the central coast of New South Wales, Hughie is a grom's grom. Big airs, big slabs, damn the consequences (Check out a proper highlight reel here). He runs on candy and soda. His energy and surf-all-day attitude make him a perfect fit for his new sponsor, the red-hot rider-backed eyewear brand known as Ritual Vision. Hughie's addition adds to an already loaded roster: The three founders, Mikey Wright, Noa Deane, and Harry Bryant, along with creative director Dion Agius, plus Mason Ho, Parker Coffin, Rolo Montes, Holly Wawn and Milla Coco Brown. All of those surfers will be featured in Ritual Vision's debut film, Ritualistic Tendencies, set to debut this December. Directed by renowned filmmaker Wade Carroll (Repeater, Saturn). Word is that the location-based includes an all-time score at a board-crunching Mexican point break. Hughie's tendency to stick massive punts and charge solid waves has endeared him to some of the best freesurfers in the world, the same guys who are now his teammates with Ritual Vision. And Hughie needs good shades right now. He's future is looking Aussie Surfer Hughie Vaughan Lands New Sponsor first appeared on Surfer on Jul 20, 2025
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Australian teenager pulls off 'best air ever' in Texas surf wave park
A step change in the evolution of surfing brought about by an Australian teenager has electrified the world of extreme sport and drawn praise from the doyen of skateboarding, Tony Hawk. The 18-year-old Central Coast surfer Hughie Vaughan produced what has been dubbed a 'stalefish flipper' at a competition in a wave park in Texas this week that has already been viewed millions of times on social media. The aerial had the teenager from Bateau Bay launching into a backflip on a right break, holding his board with his right hand and landing smoothly on the top of the wave
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Is this AI?': surfing world in awe after ‘best air ever' pulled off by 18-year-old Australian
A step change in the evolution of surfing brought about by an Australian teenager has electrified the world of extreme sport and drawn praise from the doyen of skateboarding, Tony Hawk. Eighteen-year-old Central Coast surfer Hughie Vaughan produced what has been dubbed a 'stalefish flipper' at a competition in a wave park in Texas this week that has already been viewed millions of times on social media. The aerial had the teenager from Bateau Bay launching into a backflip on a right break, holding his board with his right hand and landing smoothly on the top of the wave. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. The organisers of the The Nines event in Waco, which also involved skateboarding, described it as a 'stalefish backflip'. The series promotes experimentation and includes a rail over the water to allow surfers to produce skateboarding grinds, as well as night-surfing with illuminated rings through which competitors aerial. Surf photographer Rob Henson captured and shared Vaughan's accomplishment moment on social media, in a post that has been liked more than 7,000 times. 'Here's my angle of the BEST AIR done in a wavepool by @hughievaughan ! Not my words, those are the words of most of the surfers who have seen it,' he said. His video was reposted by Hawk, who named the trick the 'stalefish flipper', bringing the move to the attention of his near 10m followers. American DJ Diplo asked: 'Is this AI?' Although the feat was produced in a wave park, it won praise from ocean water legends of the World Surf League. Sign up to Australia Sport Get a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports desk after newsletter promotion Brazilian former world champion and Olympic gold medallist Ítalo Ferreira said it was 'insane', and Australian surf legend Mick Fanning was equally shocked. 'Wowsers. Had to watch it 50 times just to figure out what happened. Amazing,' Fanning said. Championship tour surfer Jesse Mendes said it 'has to be the best air ever done', while fellow pro Julian Wilson described it as 'a new standard'.
