Tour surfers entered the main stage when stop No.7 on the 2017 World Surf League Championship Tour, the Billabong Pro Tahiti, got underway on the weekend to restart the race for the WSL title.
It was the rookies who impressed early in the tricky conditions with Cronulla’s Connor O'Leary digging deep to secure victory over Sebastian Zietz and Leonardo Fioravanti.
O’Leary is the highest-ranked rookie, sitting in 10th place thanks to a runner-up finish in Fiji, with this his second round one win of the season.
“It’s so good to be back here in Tahiti,” O’Leary said.
“It’s a big advantage to have Luke Egan in my corner because he has such a broad knowledge. Round two is tough so it’s great to stay out of that.”
The 2015 winner Jeremy Flores was then dispatched in round three at the hands of a red hot O’Leary. Flores held the lead but O’Leary found a smoker and scored an excellent 9.33 to steal the heat from Flores.
“Jeremy is one of the best out here,” O’Leary said.
“That was really fun and I’m happy to make it through and crack round three and surf again.”
O’Leary’s contest came to an end in round five after placing second to Gabriel Medina of Brazil to finish equal ninth, a great result to keep his top seed alive going into stop No.8, the Hurley Pro at Trestles.
Julian Wilson claimed victory, after defeating Gabriel Medina (BRA) in the Final.
The win marks Wilson’s third CT victory and best result at the Billabong Pro Tahiti. The Australian is always a serious WSL Title contender and his first place finish moves him up from 8th to 5th place on the Jeep Leaderboard heading into the Hurley Pro at Trestles.
Cronulla surfers had a good start to the week on Monday but the south swell dropped rapidly yesterday after a few nice waves at Wanda in the morning and its almost dead flat today.
Swellnet predicts this small residual swell to hang around for much of the week until Friday when we should see the south facing beaches start to increase, building through the afternoon and reaching 6ft by the end of the day.
The swell is expected to peak on Saturday with gusty W/SW winds on Friday but it looks like there will be good waves for the end of this week.
In the world's weirdest surf contest Australia's Taj Burrow has taken out his second consecutive Four Seasons Maldives Surfing Champions Trophy in perfect 3-to-4 foot waves at the right-hand reef of Sultans.
Burrow surfed an incredible event taking out the Twin Fin and Thruster Division to make it to the Grand Final of the ‘world’s most luxurious surfing event’-In the Grand Final, Burrow came up against an in form Rob Machado (USA) .
Its that time of year again when the Invitation goes out to longboarders in the shire from the Southside Malibu Club for the annual Spring Classic on the 9/9/2017-entries close on the 1st for the one day classic so don't procrastinate! especially the “old farts” and “barnacle” divisions!
At the other end of the scale Aussie surf legend and former world champion Barton Lynch is calling on Shire groms to showcase their sickest shredding skills at the world’s biggest junior surf festival – the annual Hurley BL’s Blast Off.
The spring school-holidays event (September 26-29) welcomes 350 of the keenest young surfers from across Australia and around the globe to Sydney’s northern beaches for a fun-filled program of coaching, games, activities and competition.
Now in its twelfth year, the Hurley BL’s Blast Off attracts the largest field of any kids surfing event in the world, with participants taking part in a unique format that focuses on coaching and performance improvement-good luck with that one.
