WSL

In the past 24 years, there has only been a single surfer who wasn’t either from Australia or called Carissa Moore who has won the women’s world title. That surfer was Peru’s Sofia Mulanovich, and her 2004 championship is surrounded by seven won by both Layne Beachley and Steph Gilmore, four victories to Carissa Moore, …

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For a long time, the result of the Men’s Championship Tour seemed like almost a foregone conclusion even before the bell had rung to begin the first tournament. Between 1992 and 2011, Kelly Slater won what is comfortably a record 11 titles, denying many talented competitors winning as many as they deserved in the process. …

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The 2021 WSL Championship Tour will be unique for a range of reasons, but probably most notable among them is the format of the Australian leg of the tour. Rather than the Gold Coast/Bells/Margaret River ritual to which we’ve become so accustomed, this year we’ll, unfortunately, miss out on the first two courtesy of logistical issues relating to the pandemic, government regulations, and all that other jazz to which we’ve also become very accustomed over the past year. Those events will be sorely missed, but of course, the flip side to their absence is that we’ll be treated to three new events, and Rip Curl has jumped right in to sponsor all of them alongside their sponsorship of the new season-ending event at Trestles. Let’s take a look at where they are, and what we can expect from them.

The return of the World Surf League is nearly upon us, and as virtually every promotional campaign of virtually every sports league will tell you at the beginning of the season, it’s set to be a year like no other. This time, however, it’s safe to say that it’s true.  In fact, already the season …

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It’s been a period of significant change for the WSL. First they had to cancel the entire 2020 Championship Tour because of COVID-19. Then the 2021 season began in Hawaii, which for years has been home to the season-ending events at which the two world champions are found and crowned. That has left an unavoidable hole at the end of the calendar, and the WSL has filled it not just with a new tournament, but with a new event.

It’s been a tumultuous year for the World Surf League, who saw their 2020 season cancelled as a result of the pandemic which has shut down so many sporting leagues across the globe over the course of this year. It returned with a bang over the last couple of weeks, however, with the world’s best …

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