Surfing in a wave pool is like chatting with an AI robot. Both the questions and the answers are variations on the same recurring themes.

Recently I rode my bike to the surf shop to watch a movie. While we were waiting for it to start, I got chatting to a friend. I suggested that after seeing the very changeable conditions in Tahiti, I might be open to the idea of ​​moving Olympic surfing to a wave pool.

He gave me a piercing look. It was the kind of look that says: who are you and are we even friends? And then he said that wave pools have no place in competitive surfing.

Surfing belongs in the sea.

My brain made a sort of screeching noise—if you’ve ever ridden a mountain bike with the disc brakes out of adjustment, you know exactly what kind of noise I mean—and my thoughts came to a halt.

It turns out that a girl can change her mind.

On Friday we learned that the Surf Ranch has applied to host the surfing event at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. As pretty much everyone here knows, I’ve been to Lemoore far more times than anyone else should, and I can honestly tell you that I haven’t particularly enjoyed my visits.

Lemoore is hot. It smells like cow shit. Did I mention it’s hot? The people at Tachi Palace are very nice, and so is their pool. But that’s about the only good thing I can say about my visits to Surf Ranch. In fact, the best thing about visiting Surf Ranch is that you can get ice cream on the way home.

But what about surfing?

I think we all know the answer to that by now. After Tahiti, I thought that even conditions would be a good idea for the Olympics. However, the conditions were very changeable and there were many heats with few waves. The climbing, for example, takes place indoors on an artificial wall.

Why not take the same approach when surfing?

Then I remembered how monotonous competitive surfing becomes when it moves from the ocean to a place like the Surf Ranch. Of course there are high points. But mostly it’s a monotony of repetition, like the algorithm playing the same damn song over and over again. Nobody really wants to make a mistake out there, and the scarcity of waves reinforces safety surfing. It all amounts to a whole lot of nothing.

And I feel like I gave the wave pool thing more than a fair chance after all the trips to Lemoore and all the standing on the edge of the pool with sore feet watching the surfers.

And the part about the heat. But actually it’s just not that interesting.

I think it was very helpful of my friend to remind me of something I knew but had somehow forgotten. Surfing is not good in a wave pool. It actually belongs in the ocean. Suck it, Surf Ranch!

Surfing is a conversation between surfer and sea. When we stand on our boards, we may have a perfect turn in mind, but most of the time the sea has a completely different idea for us. With every wave, the sea asks a question. It’s up to us to find an answer.

Each of us brings something different to the conversation, and with each wave, the ocean invites us and provokes us in unexpected ways. The fun of surfing is responding to each wild change of mood of the ocean. This interaction, and the potential for surprise it creates, is where the magic happens.

Surfing in a wave pool is like chatting with an AI robot. Nothing unexpected happens. Both the questions and the answers are variations on the same recurring themes.

In the ocean, the best surfers seem to have an uncanny ability to see into the future. They always seem to know where the next wave will be and how the wave will move and turn as they surf down the line. This too is an essential part of competitive surfing. It’s not just about riding the wave. You have to find one first.

Given the vagaries of the ocean, surfing competitions can never be as fair as most traditional sports. We all know that, of course. The Olympics inevitably share the skewed results of the one-day championship finals. The best surfer of the day will win, sure. But will he actually be the best surfer in the world? Not necessarily, and maybe not even close.

That makes our ridiculous pastime an odd fit for the Olympics, which honor the world’s best athletes every four years. As we saw in both Chiba and Teahupoo, the waves are rarely spectacular. That means we may never see the elite performances in surfing at the Olympics that we see in other sports.

World records are broken. Gymnasts perform death-defying leaps into the air. Surfers paddle out on Huntington Beach.

It sounds absurd, but that’s surfing. It’s never fair and never as good as we hope it will be.

And I think it’s kind of great that surfing at the Olympics looks like us: We go to the beach and hope to catch some good waves. Surfing is stupid and frustrating and sometimes transcendent. Surfing is perfect.

I just needed a friend to remind me.