It’s not every event that the defending World Champion gets slapped upside the head the day before the event trying to catch a practice wave, by a local boogieboarder.

Back in 2013, Parko faded a local on a small-ish right in front of the event site, and promptly got slapped and reprimanded by the offended party.

As it happened, Parko was Ht 1 Rd 1 the very next day, I happened to be doing the beach interviews, and couldn’t help but ask him about it (I got told off for doing so, obvs)…

While the web world predictably split down boogie/surf board divide, turns out Parko had been a bit of a tool, even his tone in the interview has something of the remorseful about it.

Storm in a tea cup? Probably. But still, something of a refreshing deviation from ‘tell us about conditions out there…’