Midas touch: how to finesse your speed like surfer Jack Robinson

The Australian Olympic hope is renowned as one of the generation’s best barrel riders and while few amateurs get to score a tube ride, the skill set applies to all waves

During last year’s Tahiti Pro, one of the most fearsome stops on the World Surf League, held at the giant, barrelling wave of Teahupo’o, Australia’s Jack Robinson was trailing the three-time world champion Gabriel Medina. There were just minutes on the clock, with a spot in the WSL finals on the line.

Robinson’s skill as a tube-rider – flying at high velocity within the hollow middle section of the wave – is renowned. The 26-year-old grew up on gnarly West Australian waves; he was a regular in the “green room”, as surfers call it, before he had even hit double digits.