Big Waves, Big Action as WSL finals brings surf contest back to Lower Trestles
By LAYLAN CONNELLY | lconnelly@scng.com | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: September 14, 2021 at 7:57 a.m. | UPDATED: September 14, 2021 at 7:03 p.m.......................
As Big waves rolled in Tuesday, the world’s best competitors surfed through a fierce battle at Lower Trestles with sun-soaked, and stoked, surf fans cheering from the beach.
There was even a curious great white shark that wanted to get up close to the action, adding to the drama.
At the end of the day full of top-notch surfing, Brazilian Gabriel Medina earned his third world championship and Hawaiian Carissa Moore her fifth world title at the first-ever Rip Curl World Surf League Finals, a one-day battle held just south of San Clemente in front of huge crowds who flooded into Lower Trestles for the live surf show.
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Gabriel Medina is congratulated by fans after winning the Rip Curl World Surf League Finals at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, CA on Tuesday, September 14, 2021. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
“I feel so happy, it’s not everyday you accomplish your dream,” Medina said after clinching the win and being lifted onto the shoulders of supporters. “This is a special day for me. I had this dream in my mind for a long time.”
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Moore, hot off of earning a gold medal at the sport’s Olympic debut, held the Hawaiian flag high as she sped past the crowd on a watercraft following her win.
Moore said she surfed from her heart and tried her best – and it worked out.
“It’s a bit emotional. It was a long year, it was a long day,” she said after her win. “I couldn’t have asked for anything more, written it any better.”
Surf fans showed up pre-dawn to nab a space on the small sliver of sand or on the cobblestone rocks that line the remote beach. The Rip Curl WSL Finals were the first major pro surf contest at the famous surf spot since 2016 when it was taken off the World Tour schedule.
The cheers that filled the salty beach air showed how much fans – wearing shirts, waving flags or wearing hats to support their favorite surfers – missed the mega contest featuring the world’s best in their backyard.
San Clemente surfers Logan Harris and Laird Lavik, both 14, said they didn’t mind giving up their surf break for a day for competition.
“We haven’t had a contest in years, so it’s kinda cool,” said Lavik, who only had a half day of school and got to come down to the beach to watch the action.
Big waves and perfect peaks showed up for the day, in the 6-foot to 10-foot range. Waves were so big, a personal watercraft was used to assist the surfers back out into the line up, and surfers had trouble finding set waves that would hold up.
The five men who battled through the day included Medina and fellow Brazilians Italo Ferreira and Filipe Toledo, as well as Australia’s Morgan Cibilic and Santa Barbara’s Conner Coffin. Toledo now calls San Clemente home and met Medina in the finals.
On the women’s side, Moore matched up against Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb in the finals. The other surfers who battled through the day included France’s Johanne Defay and Australians Sally Fitzgibbons and seven-time champ Stephanie Gilmore.
Gilmore went up against Defay, but the seven-time world champion had a hard time staying on the big, bumpy waves.
Defay’s run was short lived, eliminated by Fitzgibbons, who also met her match when she went up against Weston-Webb, who earned her spot against Moore in the finals.
Local fans cheered as Coffin took to the water against Cibilic for the first men’s heat – big cutouts of his face were waved around by fans on the sand.
Troy Hoidal and wife Cheryl came down from Santa Barbra, both wearing black Rip Curl hats bearing Coffin’s name in big white letters.
Hoidal, who lived in San Clemente 40 years ago, said they made the pilgrimage to see the world’s best up close.
“To have it in my old hometown, I had to come back down here,” he said, joking he’d surfed the spot before anyone knew about surfing. “It’s so wonderful (the pros) come down here from all across the world.”
Coffin was able to eliminate Cibilic to go up against Toledo, who moved to San Clemente eight years ago. But Toledo proved he had home-court advantage, having plenty of practice time at Lower Trestles, and took Coffin out of the running, ending the Santa Barbara surfer’s bid for California’s first championship title in 30 years.
Toledo matched up with Ferreira in the third men’s heat and beat out his countryman to earn his spot against Medina, a two-time world champion hungry to add another.
Brazilian surf fans were torn about who to support, with groups set up on the beach cheering for their favorite countryman. Henrique Huier came from Los Angeles to support Toledo.
“He’s a local, he lives here, he knows the wave,” Huier said. “I surfed with him a few times, he’s a great guy so I’m cheering for him.”
Toledo went up against Medina for the best-out-of-three heat final. As expected, the two aerialists pushed to the sky during their heat, sending the crowd into cheers each time they pulled off the risky moves.
One of the biggest moments came when both surfers took beefy lefthanders, first Toledo flying to the sky and earning a 8.33 and then Medina, right behind him, going to the air and dropping from the sky for a 9.0, a big score that helped him nab the heat win.
In the second finals heat, Toledo dropped into a wave just as the buzzer sounded, flying to the air for a full rotation before hacking his way toward the beach for a 7.89. Medina answered back, going on a left-hander and doing a huge air to make the crowd go nuts, earning a 8.57.
The men’s action came to a sudden halt when an estimated 6-foot to 8-foot great white was spotted in the water. Watercrafts quickly scooped the two surfers from the water and the contest was put on a 15-minute hold, with 18 minutes left in the heat.
The beach announcer then said the shark had moved out of the area and the contest resumed.
Neither surfer seemed shaken by the shark sighting. Medina took to the air to do a massive backflip, a move rarely seen in competition, earning a 9.03 to back up his 8.50 to earn the win and his third championship title.
After his win, Medina joked he’s going to one day tell his kid how much he had to surf on this day for the win.
Tuesday’s WSL finals were a drastic change to professional surfing’s longtime format, which historically has crowned a champ based on points accumulated throughout the competitive year – sometimes in a very un-climatic finish.
Had this year kept the traditional cumulative points, Medina would have already clinched the win, far ahead in points going into the finals than any other surfer.
“It is what it is, I’m here to surf and they want to make me surf more, I will go and surf more,” he said.
In the women’s final, Weston Webb earned the first win in the three-heat match up with Moore, who wouldn’t go down without a fight. In her second final’s heat, Moore got a high 8.93, backed by a 8.33, and enough total points to take the win.
Another shark was spotted just before the third and final women’s match up, again halting the contest as organizers cleared the water.
When the final resumed, both competitors posted high 8-point rides, with Moore earning a second high score of 8.60 to put her opponent in a tough spot needing an 8.58, which Weston Webb was unable to find.
Moore called it a “crazy back and forth battle.”
“It wasn’t how I imagined how it would start and I had to fight my way back and I think that made it even sweeter,” she said.
The WSL is hoping the new one-day, surf-off format for deciding the world champs will bring a new level of excitement to the sport and capture an audience who will tune in for the showdown.
Sam Hann, of San Juan Capistrano, navigated the “overwhelming” crowd that was swelling through the morning, the space getting tighter as the tide got higher. He said he was unsure of the new final’s day format, saying he wished more of the world’s best were there to watch compete.
San Clemente surfer Malia Ward was among the crowd, the contestant on the ABC network’s “Ultimate Surfer” show stopped by a passerby looking for photos with the reality star.
“It feels amazing, unreal to have Lowers firing. It hasn’t been like this for years,” she said. “The energy is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The industry is booming, it feels like people are letting loose and having fun.”
Huier said he hopes the event comes back next year, with the spot close enough for him to go and watch.
And, he’s in luck. Lower Trestles is on the schedule for June as the seventh stop on the World Tour. While it won’t be the finals – next year’s location hasn’t been disclosed – it shows the surf break is back on the regular schedule as it was years ago.
Next, the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach will again bring the world’s best to town on Sept. 25.
Fernando Aguerre, president of the International Surfing Association, called it risky to change the championship format, but a welcome change.
“Life is a history of risky changes. You see all the excitement coming together,” he said. “This is the beginning of the new era. I think the most important part is to get people to understand what happens in the sport.”
Shaun Tomson, who won the 1977 world championship just a year after pro surfing started, looked around at the thousands of people who showed up for the one-day event.
“Surfing has been all about progression,” he said. “I think there’s way more surfers, surfing has become a lot easier, equipment is easier. You know the one thing that hasn’t changed? The stoke that drives us all to ride waves. That never changes.”
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