There are now just three events left in the Championship Tour season before the WSL Finalists are decided, and there are still plenty of potential top five finishers on both the men’s and the women’s side of the draw. The VIVO Rio Pro has been a consistent presence on the tour for over a decade, and this year there will be plenty on the line in Brazil’s capital. But as always, before we get into that let’s take a look at how the last event went down.
Surf City El Salvador Pro
The Surf City El Salvador Pro’s second year on the tour saw solid waves prevail on the peeling right hander at Punta Roca, ultimately bringing about two winners who consolidated their spot in the top five and now look likely to be competing at Trestles in a couple of months’ time.
On the women’s side of the draw, the results very closely mirrored the standings, with the semi-finalists Carissa Moore, Tyler Wright, Caroline Marks and Steph Gilmore. It was Wright and Marks making their way into the final, with the latter winning in an impressive showing on her backhand against a fleet of regular-footers. That moved her into third place, while Moore and Wright remained in first and second respectively. Gilmore moved up into a tie for fifth with Tatiana Weston-Webb courtesy of her third place finish.
It was a little different on the men’s side. Two of the four semi-finalists haven’t been in the top five conversation all year and still aren’t really, with Australia’s Liam O’Brien and Hawaii’s Ian Gentil both making the final four. However, they were both knocked out by more highly touted opponents, with yellow jersey wearer Griffin Colapinto and reigning world champ Filipe Toledo making it into the final. Toledo prevailed to earn his second win of the season and move up the leaderboard, but he still remains just behind Colapinto in second. A little lower down, Gabriel Medina jumped ahead of the flailing Jack Robinson into fifth place.
Men’s VIVO Rio Pro
The Rio Pro has been a haven for Brazilians of late, or more specifically, of Filipe Toledo. He’s won the last three editions of the contest, while he also won back in 2015, and fellow Brazilian Adriano de Souza won in 2017. Clearly that makes Toledo a tough man to beat this year, but he’ll have plenty of stiff competition.
The Favourites
It’s no surprise that Filipe Toledo tops this list. At Brazil’s solitary event on the tour he’s been dominant, winning it on four occasions overall and each of the last three. The other four times he’s competed here he’s actually been eliminated early, but you have to go back to 2017 to find an event here which he didn’t win. He’s also in some excellent form, having won the last event and finished third at the Surf Ranch Pro prior to that, and another victory here will see him jump over Colapinto and snatch the yellow jersey and number one seed with just a couple of events to go in the season. Everything points towards Toledo going very close to winning this again, and it would be a surprise if he doesn’t find himself in the hunt late in the contest.
Toledo’s compatriot Gabriel Medina has been overtaken by Toledo as Brazil’s best surfer over the past couple of years, but at his best he’s still pretty damn hard to stop. He’s shown glimpses of that this year, most notably when he won at the Margaret River Pro, but that event aside he’s been uncharacteristically average, losing in the Round of 16 in five of the other six events and losing in the next round in the other. He’s also never won here, none of which seems to bode very well for him, but he has been close a few times, finishing third twice and fifth twice. He is not surfing as well as Toledo and hasn’t surfed as well here even when he was the superior surfer, but he’s just a hard man to write off. Add to that the fact that there is a lot of pressure on the judges coming from Brazilian camps of late, and this contest is in Brazil….of course, I’d never suggest anything untoward, but you just get the feeling the home town advantage might get the Brazilians over the line in a few close heats. Regardless, Medina is good enough to win on merit, and though it would take a turnaround in form he’s very capable.
Of the non-Brazilians, Griffin Colapinto is the most in-form surfer in the world – actually, you can probably remove ‘of the non-Brazilians’ from that sentence. He’s sitting pretty in first in the world rankings, and incredibly has made the final at the last three events. That makes it four for the year for the man from San Clemente, and though he’s only won one of them it’s still good enough to have him sitting atop the world rankings and pretty well locked away in the top five with three events to go. He’s only surfed in this event three times and hasn’t had much success, finishing 9th, 13th and 17th, but he’s also never surfed as well as he is now. Having made three finals in a row, it’s hard to count him out of this one.
The Next Tier
Italo Ferreira hasn’t been at his best this year, but he’s starting to find a bit of form, having notched up a second and a fifth at the past two events. That’s put him right back in the running to finish in the top five; he’s moved up to eighth and is just over 4,000 points behind Medina in fifth, an amount he could theoretically make up at this event. He’s never won here but does have a couple of third place finishes to his name, including last year, so in front of his home crowd he’s a good chance of making his first final for the year and firming his case to compete at this year’s WSL Finals.
Rounding out the top five favourites at this year’s VIVO Rio Pro is another former world champion who hasn’t been at his best in John John Florence. He’s on the edge of the top five still, but has been struggling by his standards, particularly of late; he was eliminated in the Elimination Round in El Salvador, while at the Surf Ranch Pro before that he finished 9th. But John John is a two-time winner here, and though those wins came in 2012 and 2016 they still demonstrate a penchant for this wave which he’s capable of reproducing. He has struggled to find his best form this year, but you always feel as though he’s capable of flicking a switch.
The Roughie
The theme of the above names is quite clearly where they come from, with three out of the five favourites hailing from Brazil. We might as well keep the trend going. Joao Chianca was wearing the yellow jersey for quite some time earlier in the year, and though he’s dropped off a little he’s still been surfing reasonably well and is the third ranked surfer in the world. Given it’s just his second year on the tour he doesn’t have much experience here, having only surfed it last year, but though he finished 17th then he did lose that Elimination Round heat 13.67-13.57 – a similar trend to what he endured for much of the season. He’s a bonafide gun and with the home crowd behind him, could cause a surprise.
The Verdict
There are plenty who could win this, but who else could you pick but Filipe Toledo? He’s got everything going for him, from form at this break to form this season. He’s arguably the best surfer in the world at the moment, definitely the best surfer in this break, and can take the lead in the world rankings with a fourth consecutive win at the Rio Pro.
Women’s VIVO Rio Pro
While it’s been Brazilians dominating this event on the men’s side, on the women’s it’s been the Aussies doing all the damage. That changed last year with Moore winning, but that was just the second time in the last nine events that an Australian hasn’t won this event. Those victories have been shared by Sally Fitzgibbons, Steph Gilmore and Tyler Wright, the latter two of whom should be right in the mix again this year.
The Favourites
As usual, Carissa Moore tops the list here, and the best surfer in the world has plenty going for her. She enters the contest having won two of the last three events, with the lone exception being a third place finish at the Surf City El Salvador Pro. She also won here for the first time last year in impressive fashion; she couldn’t put a score on the board in her Opening Round heat, managing just 1.50, and then she just barely scraped through the Elimination Round. After that, she compiled scores consecutively of 12.47, 14.60 and then 15.43 in the final to win each of those knockout heats easily. She also finished second at Saquerama back in 2019, the second last time it was held, so with form at the venue and this season behind her she’ll be hard to stop – as always.
The same can be said for Tyler Wright. She’s in just about every contest so far this season and has put herself into second place in the world rankings, very comfortably entrenched in the top five and a great chance to take out the world title this year. Wright has made four finals in seven events and three of the last four after her second place finish at the El Salvador Pro, and she also happens to be the equal most successful female surfer at the Rio Pro in history. She won it in 2013, 2016 and 2017, and while that’s a while between drinks the only time she’s surfed here since that last win was in 2018. Wright looks every bit the surfer who won back to back titles in 2016 and 2017, and having made three finals in the last four events it’s a safe bet that she’ll go pretty deep at Saquerama.
Caroline Marks has worked her way back into the world title conversation this year after a couple of down seasons, surfing more like the prodigiously talented teenager that burst onto the scene a few years ago than the inconsistent performer she’s been the last couple of years. She’s been improving throughout the course of this year, quite literally going one round better every event since Hawaii; in the third event she finished ninth, then fifth, then third, then second, before finally breaking through for a win at El Salvador last week. That run of form has seen her leap into third place in the world rankings and more than 10,000 points inside the all-important top five. On the three occasions she’s surfed here she hasn’t excelled, finishing 9th twice and 5th once, but with her form the way it is she’ll be super dangerous this time around.
The Next Tier
The three aforementioned names have established themselves as the women to beat this year, but second-year prodigy Molly Picklum isn’t all that far behind. After starting the year like a house on fire she’s slowed up a little, but is still consistently compiling solid scores, finishing fifth at the last three events. She’ll be eager to end that run at Saquerama and make her way into the final four and beyond, though she will lack the experience of most of her competitors having never surfed here in a CT event. Still, given it’s her second year on the tour she’s typically at a pretty significant experience disadvantage and it hasn’t slowed her down too much yet. She’ll have to surf well to beat the above three, but she’s made it to the quarterfinals at every event this year and the final twice, so she should at least be in the mix.
Similar to Picklum of late, Lakey Peterson has long had a habit of making her way into the quarterfinals but struggling to go much further once she starts coming up against the absolute best of the best. That means that at most events, while she’s likely to get through the early rounds, she’s hard to back to win the whole things, and realistically that’s probably the case here as well. Her record at the Rio Pro reflects that idea; the last five times she’s surfed here she’s managed a 2nd, three 5th place finishes and a 9th. She’s also not passed the quarterfinals this year since the opening contest of the year, but the experienced American is still on the cusp of the top five. She’ll be desperate for a big result to get her back in the mix for the WSL Finals, and while it’s hard to see her winning she should put herself in a position to go deep into the contest.
The Roughie
Unlike on the men’s side, just one Brazilian woman has ever won this event, and the best chance of bucking that trend this year is Tatiana Weston-Webb. She’s been pretty solid this year and in particular over the last couple of events; she finished 3rd at the Surf Ranch Pro and made her way into the quarterfinals in El Salvador before needing to withdraw through injury. The goofy footer has never won at her home event but she’s gone relatively close the last few times, with two semi-final appearances and a quarter final appearance in the last three editions of the event. At her best, Weston-Webb is an absolute weapon and can be very hard to stop, so though she’s a little down the pecking order she’s capable of putting it all together and upsetting them all.
The Verdict
It’s typically Moore and Wright at the top of the pecking order, while Marks has joined the top tier courtesy of a hot run of form of late. It feels like the winner will most likely come from that trio – one of them has won each of the last four events – and I’m siding with Wright this time around. She’s done some of the best surfing of her career here in the past, and though that was many years ago, she’s surfing at a similar level to what she was back then when she was winning world titles. It’s hard to envision her not at least going very deep into this tournament, and she can wind back the clock with her first victory in Brazil since 2017.
