After his second best result for the year Connor O’Leary has clawed two valuable places back in his quest to remain on the men's world Championship Tour.
No matter the end of year result, O’Leary showed in his fighting 13th place finish that he is not out of place on the world “dream” tour with a dominate backhand performance on the clean and powerful Jeffreys Bay walls.
After missing a first round win by one point, O’Leary’s second round heat was the highest score of the event and set up a third round with 2014 World Surf League world champion Gabriel Medina, with the Brazilian’s second wave score of 9.3 just enough to knock O’Leary out.
O’Leary sits 27th overall with the next stop the Tahiti Pro Teahupoo where he needs to climb to 22nd place.
Brazilian Filipe Toledo won the men’s Corona Open J-Bay for the second year in a row. He lit up Supertubes to win the sixth stop on the WSL CT and vault to world No.1.
The Vans US Open of Surfing will return to the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier this month to host the world’s best action sports athletes from July 28.
This year’s surfing competitions include the highly-anticipated WSL women’s Championship Tour (CT) event, the men's WSL qualifying series (QS) 10,000 contest and two pro junior events.
Cronulla has been battered by more surf than it could handle over the last few days,with a big rogue South swell doing its thing on Australia's East coast.
The Alley was just surfable, otherwise it was all Points and Reefs so far this week -but it has dropped this morning with good 3/4ft waves all up and down the entire beach.
Swellnet says the strong South swell will be easing from Tuesday dropping to 2/3 ft on Thursday with a new windy south swell due on Saturday .
The strong fetch responsible for this weeks impressive south swell is now exiting our swell window. We'll see a couple of very good days this week as it dies, with unpredictable swell sources on the cards for the weekend .
The Women's Corona Open J-Bay, has been be off for 2 days due to small and inconsistent surf on offer at Supertubes.
"We are going to do the next call this morning," said Jessi Miley-Dyer, WSL Deputy Commissioner.
"The swell on Friday still looks really good, but I am going to have another look today - I think it is worth it. The winds do not look as great but there is still going to be swell-Friday could be all time”
Australians Sally Fitzgibbons and Macy Callaghan were eliminated in Round 2 against their respective competitors, Coco Ho (HAW) and Johanne Defay (FRA) and Tyler Wright pulled out-leaving Steph Gilmore to carry the can once again.
Jack Entwistle (Manly, NSW/AUS) and Georgia Young (Swanbourne, WA/AUS) etched their names into one of Western Australia’s most prestigious and iconic trophy’s, with victory today at the 21st annual Whalebone Longboard Classic in Cottesloe, Perth.
Entwistle went back-to-back at WA’s only World Surf League Longboard Qualifying Series event, defeating Dane Pioli (Coolangatta, QLD/AUS) in a wave-starved Final. While WA’s own Georgia Young used her intimate knowledge of the reef at Isolators to overcome rising superstar Emily Lethbridge (Noosa, QLD/AUS). In another day of spectacular winter weather, competitors were greeted to clean 1-2 feet peeling waves along Perth’s metropolitan coastline.
Cronulla’s Matt Mulder needed more than the ninth he finished with so he did not progress in the ratings but he did make the Loggers final,finishing second.His next move is at the Australian Titles in early August-The SAE Group Australian Surf Festival – Tweed Coast, NSW - August 10 - 27, 2018