The Newcastle Cup Wash-Up

As the sun set on the first Championship Tour event in four months, the two winners of the Newcastle Cup were also handed the yellow jerseys which represents their positions as the number one male and female surfers in the world. It was Italo Ferreira and Carissa Moore who had saluted, both re-establishing themselves on top of their respective rankings leaderboard after each of them won the last completed WSL season back in 2019. Let’s take a look at how it all unfolded.

Newcastle Cup – Men’s

The early stages of the men’s event went largely as expected, with all of the big names advancing out of the initial rounds – with the notable exception, however, of a guy you may have heard of called John John Florence. Florence was beaten by NSW local Morgan Cibilic, who put in one of the performances of the event and undoubtedly of his life to score 17.13 and knock the 2x world champ out in the Round of 32. 

Come the quarter-finals and the Brazilian trio who are, with John John, the three runaway world title favourites this year, were all still kicking. Medina, Ferreira and Toledo all won, but it was an incredible round of surfing, with Filipe Toledo’s 13.83 – 13.04 victory the biggest win of the round. Cibilic won through against local Ryan Callinan in a nail biter – their scores were tied, meaning Cibilic advanced courtesy of the fact that his best wave was 0.2 points better than his opponent’s. 

And so there were four; three very predictable semi-finalists, one a little less so. Medina got over the line in the first semi courtesy of a 9.7 to finish his heat against a very competitive Cibilic, but Ferreira had things a little easier, winning easily over fellow countryman Toledo. 

It feels like every second final for the past couple of years has been Medina vs Ferreira, so it’s safe to say that transmission had resumed as normal. Medina drew first blood in the final with an 8.6, but that would be his only score in excess of 5, and this inability to back up the best score of the heat would ultimately be his undoing. Ferreira, in contrast, was able to capitalise on conditions and exceed a score of 5 on four occasions, and his top two scores of 7.77 and 7.17 were enough to hand him his first event win of the 2021 season.

The win follows a third-place finish at Pipeline back in December, enough to have him sitting out on top of the Jeep Leaderboard two events in. Medina is right on his heels having finished second at both events, while there is a gap back to John John Florence on third – he’ll be hoping that his 17th-place finish at Newcastle ends up being in his bottom two and a throwaway come season’s end. Jordy Smith, the ever-improving Kanoa Igarashi and Aussie Ryan Callinan sit tied for fourth, while Toledo is back in seventh and has some work to do to catch up with the pack. Fortunately, he won’t have to wait long, with the next event at Narrabeen beginning in just a couple of days.

Women’s Newcastle Cup

Unlike in the men’s event where John John was the only real surprise early exit, the women’s side of the draw was full of early upsets. Sally Fitzgibbons, a three-time winner in Newcastle and one of the favourites to win a fourth, was comprehensively beaten by Keely Andrew in the Round of 16, while in the very next heat Tyler Wright was knocked out by Courtney Conlogue. She, like John John, won at Pipeline a few months ago and was wearing the yellow jersey as a result, but couldn’t land a blow in the second event of the season. Lakey Peterson was also knocked out that round, as was Tatiana Weston-Webb, leaving the event wide open.

The upsets continued in the quarter-finals, most notably with the elimination of Steph Gilmore at the hands of Isabella Nichols, who appears primed to take a significant step forward this season after a number of years on the outer reaches of the Championship Tour. 

Carissa Moore was looking dangerous – she put together a 17.33 total in the quarters including a 9.9 on a single wave – while elsewhere Caroline Marks was reminding everyone that she’s every bit as talented as advertised with a 16.26. As luck would have it, those two would meet in a semi-final heat which looked likely to be the heat from which the tournament winner would emerge. Moore put on a show, taking three waves and scoring at least 8.33 on all of them to run out a comfortable winner.

Isabella Nichols won the other final against Keely Andrew, though that was with a score of just 13.2 and it was clear that she would need to find another gear to beat Moore. She didn’t, and Moore is not one to beat herself – the Hawaiian picked up another 9.5 on an individual wave to start the heat and ended up with a 15.73 total, winning by a huge 7.39 points and rounding out a dominant tournament in which nobody got within 3 points of her, and she defeated three opponents by more than 6.

As a four-time world champion Moore was one of the obvious Championship Tour favourites heading into this season, but a second-place finish at Pipe and a dominant win at Newcastle spells trouble for her competitors. Tyler Wright and Steph Gilmore, seemingly the two most likely to be able to compete with her, sit in second and fourth respectively in the world rankings, but they are already a long way in the rear-view mirror. 

Of course, there’s still plenty of water to go under the bridge and with competitors only needing to finish in the top five to make the Championship Tour final at Trestles, it’s still anybody’s game. And the likes of Wright and Gilmore, both of whom endured disappointing results at Newcastle, will only have to wait a couple more days until the Narrabeen Classic kicks off, and they can restart their pursuit of Wright.

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