With the inaugural mid-season cut following the recently concluded Margaret River Pro, it was always going to be a contest with significant ramifications at both ends of the world rankings. Both the men’s and the women’s events saw numerous high profile surfers sent packing from the Championship Tour for the rest of the year, while others solidified their spot closer to the top of the leaderboard as we enter the second half of the season.
Over the last two days of the competition, Margaret River reminded the surfing world why it deserves its spot on tour, delivering some of the biggest waves we’ve seen all year, and at the end of it, it was a couple of talented young Aussies who emerged triumphant. This is how it all went down.
The Women
The women kicked off the Margaret River Pro in average conditions, but with quality waves forecast for later on in the event window, organisers were keen to get those early stages out of the way. As a result the Opening Round wasn’t much to write home about, with a couple of heats seeing no surfer score in double figures and the highest total of the round a 13.60 by Malia Manuel. There were, however, a couple of notable losers to emerge from the six heats, with both Lakey Peterson and Tatiana Weston-Webb – our pick for the event – sent to the Elimination Round.
As expected, both of them handled it with aplomb. Peterson was in the first elimination heat up against Luana Silva and Mia McCarthy, and her 13.50-point total saw her win the heat, while McCarthy was sent packing. Weston-Webb went even better in the second heat; her 16.50 was comfortably the highest score of the event to that point in time and saw her beat out Gabriela Bryan – who also surfed well for a 14.16 total – and Bettylou Sakura Johnson. The loss ensured that Johnson, after an impressive third place at Sunset Beach in the second event of the year, remained out of the top ten, falling off the Championship Tour for the rest of the season as a result.
There was plenty on the line in the Round of 16; with only ten surfers on the women’s side of the draw advancing to the second half of the season, only a handful were guaranteed a spot above the cut line. Weston-Webb was the first notable name to be eliminated, and even having enjoyed a win in Portugal so far this year, fell perilously close to that cut line, and would have missed had Malia Manuel won her own Round of 16 heat an hour later; Manuel, however, fell agonisingly short, losing her heat by 0.07 points and missing the cut as a result. Elsewhere, big names dropped like flies; Tyler Wright the first to go in the third heat, Carissa Moore following a couple of heats later, before Lakey Peterson and Sally Fitzgibbons were also knocked out. Fitzgibbons loss meant that she became the biggest casualty of the first ever mid-season cut as she dropped three places to 15th by the end of the event. But it wasn’t all bad news for the big names; Steph Gilmore was comprehensive in ensuring her own place in the quarterfinals and top ten as a result, while Johanne Defay – who beat Fitzgibbons – and Courtney Conlogue – who beat Manuel – also confirmed their places in the back half of the year.
Enter the quarterfinals. While a win at Margaret River was clearly front of mind, a number of the remaining competitors still had the prospect of elimination from the tour to worry about as well. Gabriela Bryan was one of them, but she promptly beat Brisa Hennessy to keep her chances alive. In the next heat, young Aussie Molly Picklum didn’t enjoy the same fortune; her 13.00-12.17 loss to Conlogue meant she failed to work her way above the cut line. Bronte Macauley then kept her own hopes alive with the narrowest of wins over Gilmore, before Isabella Nichols knocked Defay out to round out the final four.
It was all on the line for Bryan in the semi – a win would confirm her spot in the top ten of the world rankings, while a loss would send her packing, and with a matchup against Conlogue it didn’t look like being easy. And it wasn’t. Conlogue put together a huge heat total of 15.43, but Bryan, with all the composure of a steely veteran, managed an 8.73 on her last wave to shore up a spot in the Margaret River Pro Final, and the second half of the season. In the second semi, both Bronte Macauley and Nicholls needed a win to jump above the cut line, and the tension was high. But even with the crowd behind the local Macauley, it was Nicholls who delivered some of the best surfing of her career, putting together a massive 15.93 to win her way through to the final.
But that wasn’t enough; Nicholls still needed to win the final to shore up her spot on Tour. And with an easing swell, she did exactly that. There were moments of nerves for both surfers in the final, but Nicholls did enough and ultimately won 12.94-10.00, a maiden CT win which couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.
Indicative of just how tight the world rankings were, despite the fact that a loss in the finals would have seen Nicholls lose her spot on Tour, the win saw her jump up into fourth place. Elsewhere, Conlogue jumped up into the top five, Hennessy regained the yellow jersey off Moore, while Manuel and Robinson fell out of the top ten and lost their spot as a result.
The Men
With 22 spots up for grabs in the second half of the season compared to the women’s ten, there was a bit more wiggle room for most of the top male surfers as they looked to make the mid-season cut, but nonetheless there were plenty perilously close to it entering the event. One man who didn’t fall into that category was John John Florence, a dominant force at Margaret River over recent years, and he started the event like the best surfer in the world at this break with a 15.60 in his first heat. Other notable scores included a 15.00 from Ezekiel Lau and a 14.17 from Italo Ferreira, while most of the biggest names made their way through to the Round of 32; Kelly Slater being one exception.
The GOAT was lumped into an Elimination Round heat with Jadson Andre and Jack Thomas, and while he wasn’t exactly comprehensive in doing so, he scraped through to the Round of 32 in a heat which saw Thomas eliminated. Fellow Aussie Ben Spence was sent packing in the next, before Jacob Wilcox and then Seth Moniz lost the remaining two heats.
The all-important Round of 32 kicked off with two full days of competition to come to wrap up the event, and conditions were heaving. Florence continued on his merry way in Heat #1 before Kolohe Andino also won through to the Round of 16, before last year’s rookie sensation Morgan Cibilic and the ever-consistent Conner Coffin were also sent packing, each of their losses meaning their seasons on the CT came to an official end. Kanoa Igarashi was a surprise early exit at the hands of the impressive Matthew McGillivray, Italo Ferreira won through well, while Owen Wright’s loss in the eighth heat meant he joined Coffin and Cibilic as an unexpected victim of the cut. The best performance of the round came in the 12th heat, when Ethan Ewing continued his hugely impressive season with a massive 17.93 heat total, knocking out an unlucky Leonardo Fiorivanti, whose 14.77 fell way short of what was required. Slater was also knocked out, before Jordy Smith put on a show en route to a 16.17 and local boy Jack Robinson also won through with a 14.83.
The pumping conditions continued for the Round of 16 on what was to be a lengthy finals day, the first heat of which saw Florence progress through to the quarters with a walkover after Andino was forced to pull out with an injury. McGillivray and Ferreira continued their good form with big scores to advance, before one of the heats of the contest came when Nat Young (15.66) beat out Bells winner and yellow-jersey wearer Filipe Toledo (15.63) by the barest of margins. Ewing confirmed himself as one of the favourites to win the event with another massive heat total of 16.43, Smith won through in the penultimate heat, before Robinson was forced to pull off a solid score to ward off Barron Mamiya in another high-scoring, tight heat, which he won 16.06-15.93, much to the delight of his home crowd.
With plenty of quality and in-form surfers left in the quarters, and conditions, though easing, still extremely good, the quarterfinals always loomed as an entertaining four heats, and the first of them certainly delivered. Colapinto threw everything at Florence, scoring 7.8 or more on three waves and finishing with a total of 17.16 – unfortunately for him, Florence put together a 17.50 heat total. The second heat was similarly entertaining, with McGillivray continuing his fine form to knock out Ferreira 15.87-14.67. Ewing was again brilliant in his quarterfinal, beating Young 15.70-12.40, before Robinson continued his march towards what would be a fairytale finish at his home break by knocking out Smith.
And so the semis were set; probably the best two surfers in the world at this break in Florence and Robinson, as well as two who had been surfing it like they deserve to be in the same category in McGillivray and Ewing. McGillivray was given the unenviable task of matching up against Florence in the first semi, and the Hawaiian quickly showed just how good he is here with his best heat of the event. His 18.90 gave the South African virtually no chance, locking Florence into the final as he hunted for his third Margaret River Pro title. The two young gun Aussies followed, and put on a great show; Ewing top scored on an individual wave with a 9.03, but he couldn’t back it up with anything more than a 5.50, meaning Robinson’s 16.27 was enough to send him through to the final.
It was a tantalising matchup in the final; the 24-year-old local boy who has, for years, been tearing this break to shreds, up against the two-time world champ who has dominated this event in recent years. And it well and truly lived up to its billing. Florence started the better, with an 8.50 and a 7.10 locking in a decent score for him, before Robinson had probably the best five minutes of his surfing career. A huge reverse air on one wave preceded a more traditional, carve-laden ride on the next, and with both waves scored as 8-point rides he moved into the lead with a 16.24 total. Try as he might, Florence couldn’t find a wave with the 7.75 he needed to win as the minutes wind down, and the fairytale was complete for Robinson.
The win, Robinson’s second on the CT, saw him jump up a huge ten spots into third place on the Championship Tour, while Igarashi dropped out of the top five for the first time this season and Slater dropped nine spots to 13th. McGillivray’s fantastic contest saw him jump above the cut line while Andre did the same, but on the other side of the coin names like Coffin, Lau, Wright, Cibilic, Morais and Fiorivanti were unable to catapult themselves above the dreaded cut line.
It was a brilliant contest at Margaret River, filled with massive conditions, surprise results and, courtesy of the cut, a whole lot of tension. It spelled the end of the CT season for many, but for others – including winners Nicholls and Robinson – the results at this contest put them in with a legitimate chance of finishing in the top five and making it through to the WSL Finals. Just five events now remain, with the next set to begin on May 28 at G-Land in Indonesia, a contest which will mark the beginning of the run home for the 2022 Championship Tour season.
