Mr. Zeitz on his way to one of the best wins in the history of the event. Photo: ASP/WSL
“The Triple Crowns meant a lot. Each Hawaii season, winning that was always a goal,” Joel Parkinson recently told The Inertia. “The World Title was obviously the priority, but a Triple Crown win came with a different level of respect. It felt important. It was important.”
Parko won a Triple Crown three-peat from 2008 to 2010. The only other surfer to do that was Sunny Garcia, who won six over his career. The original Triple Crown started in 1968, but the collation of the competition results across the three venues of Haleiwa, Sunset, and Pipeline started in 1983. Over time, it became part of surfing’s cultural fabric, the second most important trophy in the sport, and the best signifier of a surfer’s level of comfort and ability in a range of Hawaiian conditions.
In 2020, under the challenges of the pandemic, the series went digital. In 2021, a combination of the Pipeline Championship Tour event being shunted to January, the new WSL Finals format and the move to regional QS qualifying, meant that the Triple Crown suddenly didn’t have three crowns. The license holder, Vans, announced the event would continue to be housed online with invited surfers submitting freesurfing waves from the three locations.
As in the first COVID year, fans voted for John John Florence and Carissa Moore, which was pretty hard to argue with in terms of getting the right results. In 2022, Moore won again, alongside Hawaiian Finn McGill. However, interest was waning. The sense was that the Triple Crown’s cache had been vaporized by its non-analogue nature. Surf fans wanted it IRL.
In 2023, the digital version didn’t resurface. It seems to have simply disappeared into the ether. If there was an official announcement, it didn’t get a lot of coverage. One of the fundamental pillars of pro surfing’s history had vanished. It didn’t even get an obituary. And so when footage emerged this week of Josh Moniz claiming an emotional win at Haleiwa, my muscle memory quickly allocated Josh the Triple Crown lead. A bit like the absence you feel from an amputated leg. For surfers, the pain was real. “As a surfer from Hawaii, participating in surf contests feels pointless without the prestigious Triple Crown of Surfing,” said Hawaiian shredder Shayden Pacarro. “How can it be that the ‘Mecca’ and birthplace…has become the smallest arena in competitive surfing? “
Still, it’s worth remembering why it gained such a strong foothold in surfers’ consciousness. A scan of the winner’s list shows what it took to win. Derek and Mike Ho won six between them, Andy Irons claimed four, Tom Carroll, Julian Wilson, Gabriel Medina, John John and Griff have all got trophies. Parko and his commitment to Hawaii was rewarded in his historic sequence. Kelly, even with his well-known antagonism towards competing at Sunset, claimed two.
Sometimes the CT stars didn’t win, but the surprise winners had always earned their stripes. Locals Myles Padaca and Sebastian Zietz took one of surfing’s premier prizes on the back of the time they’d spent at the iconic venues, as did Bede Durbidge and Jesse Mendes. Zietz’s win in 2012 not only cemented his CT status but earned him $100,000 in prize money and a Harley Davidson motorcycle. And his “chair” up the beach to receive the trophy with him standing on a board carried by his Kauai mates remains the gold standard.
The Triple Crown was good at that. It gurgled up extra stories each year and added layers to the pro surfing milieu. Early pacesetters in the ratings would often get wildcards into the later events to give them the crack at the title. The Triple Crown Rookie of the Year was also one of the more accurate predictor tools. Winners Ethan Ewing, Jack Robinson, Frederico Morais, Koa Smith and Baron Mamiya prove the crystal ball theory.
Now, I’m wary of being that old guy shouting at clouds. I’m not one to subscribe to Kris Kristofferson’s theory where he’d trade all his tomorrows for one single yesterday. The Triple Crown had some issues, most glaringly a lack of a female winner when Pipe didn’t have a women’s division.
And I’m not that interested in apportioning blame. It didn’t feel like a deliberate act, more a death by a conglomerate of cuts. It seems to be a victim of COVID-19, the WSL’s calendar changes, local licensing, budgets, surfing politics and probably a load of other reasons attributed to things way beyond my pay grade. Maybe that’s worse. It just faded out as an afterthought.
But as we swing into what was once prime Triple Crown season for more than four decades, one of surfing’s key jewels seems to have been discarded carelessly. Its history perhaps deserved more. At the very least it should be remembered.
