It was always going to be difficult for the Hurley Pro at Sunset Beach to live up to the standard set by the first event of the season at Pipeline, but if you like underdog stories then it went pretty close. Huge, unruly conditions prevailed throughout the early stages of the event before giving way to more manageable waves during the finals, during which surprise winners in both the men’s and the women’s event climbed their way to the top of the world rankings.
The Women
It was the men who were enduring the biggest and most difficult conditions of the event window, but while the size had eased somewhat by the time the women got out there, it was still more than big enough to keep most of us mere mortals happy to simply be watching from afar. And as was the case with their male counterparts – aside from the first day or so – the scores were reflective of conditions with plenty of potential for quality surfing.
In the Opening Round, the lowest winning heat total was 12.5, with a number of surfers comfortably exceeding that. Malia Manuel looked in good touch with a 14.00, two-time world champ Tyler Wright managed 14.43, talented local Bettylou Sakura Johnson went even better with a 14.84 while Courtney Conlogue was the best of the bunch, scoring a 9.10 en route to a 16.27.
A couple of big names came last in their heats and were resigned to the Elimination Round, most notably Steph Gilmore and Pipeline winner Moana Jones Wong. They both found themselves in a high-quality first heat of the Elimination Round, and with Luana Silva winning that heat, Gilmore only narrowly escaped and made Jones Wong the first one sent packing from the event. In the second Elimination Round heat, Bronte Macauley struggled to catch a wave of consequence at all, and with her opponents putting together decent scores she was the second sent home.
The high scores continued in the Round of 16, with Frenchwoman Johanne Defay setting the standard in the first heat with a 15.73. That win sent Conlogue tumbling from the event after her excellent first round, and the big names continued to fall thereafter. In the second heat, it was Tyler Wright’s turn to be eliminated after Malia Manuel put together a big total, before Tatiana Weston-Webb was defeated in the third heat; and the giant killing was only just getting started. Steph Gilmore’s scratchy start to the season continued when she lost the fourth heat, before Carissa Moore failed to advance deep into an event for what felt like the first time in about three years. Rounding things out were defeats for Sally Fitzgibbons and Lakey Peterson, making for what must be one of the most talented list of Round of 16 losers in CT history.
That left a quarterfinals line-up which no one could have predicted; Malia Manuel and Johanne Defay were the biggest names in the round, and were joined by Gabriela Bryan, Luana Silva, Brisa Hennessy, Molly Picklum, Bettylou Sakura Johnson and India Robinson. The lack of star power certainly didn’t detract from the quality of the surfing though, with both Silva and Picklum losing their heats at the hands of Bryan and Hennessy respectively despite managing heat totals comfortably in excess of 13. Elsewhere, Manuel continued her excellent form in defeating Defay, while Johnson knocked out Robinson in the lowest scoring heat of the round.
In the semi-finals, Manuel’s quest for a long overdue maiden tour victory continued in earnest as she once again put together a quality heat to defeat Bryan and progressed into the final. Her eventual opponent, however, put her stamp on the competition early in the second semi. Hennessy’s 9-point ride to open her heat would have been enough to win on its own, but when accompanied by a 6.17 gave her a score Johnson couldn’t get close to.
Once Defay was defeated in the quarterfinals, the winner of the Hurley Pro was always going to be standing on the podium for the first time; so would it be Manuel or Hennessy? Both would have been deserving winners, and in a tense and relatively low-scoring final, Manuel’s top score of 6.33 had her in with a chance until the dying minutes. Unfortunately for the Hawaiian, she couldn’t add a back-up score, and when Hennessy put together a 7.00 with the clock winding down, the fat lady began to sing.
The win sent the Costa Rican to the top of the world rankings, a place she has never been before, meaning that she will surf the first and only European event of the season wearing the yellow jersey. Manuel sits just behind her with Jones Wong in third despite her early exit at Sunset, making for a thoroughly unexpected top three. A number of big names will need to get moving ASAP if they want to avoid being eliminated at the first ever mid-season cut, with Weston-Webb, Fitzgibbons, Gilmore, Conlogue, and the injured Caroline Marks all finding themselves towards the bottom of the table heading into what is sure to be an intriguing event at Supertubos.
The Men
If you like watching big wave surfing, the first couple of rounds of the men’s Hurley Pro would have been right up your alley. Boy was it big, and boy was it wild. The waves were right on the precipice of being too big for the break to handle, but nonetheless the men were sent out there for a couple of compelling days of surfing. Big scores were hard to come by in the Opening Round, but the size of the waves meant that when someone managed to paddle themselves into a good one, those scores were available. Local Imaikalani deVault was one such example with an 8.93, while Kanoa Igarashi and Jordy Smith also managed to find 8-point rides. A few big names found themselves at the bottom of their heats and subsequently were sent to the Elimination Round, most notably the yellow jersey wearing, recently-turned-50 Kelly Slater, who was joined by 12 others including Owen Wright, Griffin Colapinto and Seth Moniz.
Wright would be the only of those to fail to advance to the Round of 32, with an interference call meaning he had just one wave counted and fell just short of the struggling Morgan Cibilic. Slater advanced with a 13.00, but that was only enough to get through by the skin of his teeth; the man who finished last in the heat, Koa Smith, very nearly passed him with a last second wave but fell agonisingly short of the required score.
By the time the Round of 32 began, conditions had eased to a more manageable size, and big scores had become a little easier to come by. The first heat was indicative of that, with Caio Ibelli (15.00) knocking out Conner Coffin (14.23). 14 other surfers would manage heat totals in excess of 14 over the course of the round, including five unlucky losers. The most notable moment of the round came when, within the space of 15 seconds, both Slater and John John Florence were eliminated from the event. With two heats in the water at the same time, Slater took off on the inside of Florence without priority with the latter’s heat in its final seconds and a score of 6.94 required for Florence to advance. Kelly jumped off the wave without too much fuss, but nonetheless he had crossed paths with Florence and was subsequently called for interference, which left a win for him impossible. Florence surfed the wave fine but fell short of his required score, meaning both of them were essentially eliminated by the same wave. They weren’t he only big names to fall at this hurdle, either; Italo Ferreira was comfortably beaten, Cibilic went down soon after, and Colapinto had a tough loss to Connor O’Leary despite scoring 15.7.
With all those big names gone, the competition was wide open entering the Round of 16. Young Aussie Ethan Ewing, who appears to finally be ready to deliver on the talent so evident in his surfing, put in the performance of the round, beating Filipe Toledo 18.24-16.5 in a high-quality heat. His Aussie counterpart Jack Robinson also appears to have taken a huge step forward and showed as much with a 15.84, while Kanoa Igarashi went even better with a 16.10 and little-known Hawaiian Barron Mamiya looked good with a 14-point heat. Jordy Smith was one big name to lose in the round, while Kolohe Andino and Nat Young were also sent home.
Which left us with eight. Once again, the surfing was very good and the scores were high in the quarters, beginning with Ibelli’s back-to-back 8-point rides for a total of 16.03. Mamiya defeated Moniz in the next heat, before Ewing continued his great form and arguably stamped himself as the favourite to win the event with a 15.7. The final quarterfinal was the highest quality of the round, with Igarashi and Robinson pitted against one another; both surfed well, but Igarashi’s 16.27 proved too much for the Aussie to match.
Igarashi and Ewing had been the best surfers of the event, but a final match-up between them proved impossible after they were matched up in the second heat. That proved fortuitous for Mamiya; he came up against Ibelli, who had been surfing well, but neither set the world on fire and a 10.37 was enough for the Hawaiian to advance to the final. It was the opposite story in the second semi; both Igarashi and Ewing continued to surf brilliantly, compiling multiple scores in excess of 7 each. It could have gone either way, but when the buzzer sounded it was advantage Japan, just; Igarashi’s 16.20 narrowly eclipsing Ewing’s 15.83.
And so the finalists were the experienced and talented Igarashi, and the inexperienced and talented Mamiya. It appeared to be a golden opportunity for an early season win for Igarashi, but that idea was quickly put to bed by the local. Mamiya opened with a 6.83, added an 8.17 soon after, before finishing with an 8.83 to win 17.00-12.33. It was a win that literally no one in the world probably expected, including Mamiya himself, and saw him join Hennessy on stage as an unlikely winner of the Hurley Pro.
Like Hennessy, the win also skyrockets him into first place in the world rankings and will see him wear the yellow jersey in Portugal. Igarashi and Moniz sit just behind him, while Slater is still hanging onto a top five spot ahead of Ewing. Most big names are comfortably within the cut line, though Coffin, Colapinto, and a Cibilic seemingly suffering from second year blues will need to turn their form around soon.
The event at Pipeline was one of the most memorable in CT history, and while the Hurley Pro was never going to live up to that standard, it still offered plenty for fans to get excited about. The waves were, at times, enormous, we had controversial interference calls, whales breaching, and at the end of it, two unexpected winners. It’s been a Hawaiian leg to remember, and when we head to Supertubos, we’ll have Brisa Hennessy and Barron Mamiya wearing the yellow jerseys; something nobody could have predicted.
