Kanoa Igarashi is riding below the cutline as of now. Photo: Beatriz Ryder//World Surf League
The Australian leg of the Championship Tour season may very well become its own pinpoint from now on. Or at least as long as the WSL’s mid-year cut exists. In past seasons, the two-plus stops in OZ have either been the start of the CT year altogether or they’d be a bit of a ho-hum stretch in a long season, but love it or hate it, the mid-year cut has infused some drama that wouldn’t exist in April. Eight women and 10 men will be relegated to the Challenger Series after the Western Australia Margaret River Pro which ends in exactly one month. That makes the next week (or two) at Bells crunch time.
With that in mind, there are a handful of notable athletes currently sitting below the cut line, in danger of getting the hook:
Stephanie Gilmore
Steph needs lots of turns like this to advance. Photo: Pat Nolan//World Surf League
Gilmore started off 2022 slow, withdrawing from Pipe, followed by an equal ninth at Sunset. She had climbed above the cut line by the Australian leg and eventually squeaked into the top five for Finals Day. You know the rest. She’s both the defending world champ and sitting at number 12 in the rankings, so the spotlight will undoubtedly be on her at Bells. She’s won the event twice and finished runner-up three times in her career so a massive turnaround isn’t a wild stretch.
Kanoa Igarashi
Another top five finisher from 2022 whose results just haven’t been there this year. Kanoa Igarashi has made it past the Round of 32 just once, a Round of 16 loss at Sunset. The bad news is Kanoa’s never earned better than an equal ninth at Bells and Margs. The good news is he has a sixth sense for dramatic comebacks, like his Olympic win over Gabriel Medina in 2021 or a last-second 9.70 at Teahupo’o that got him to Trestles in 2022. He also doesn’t have a ton of ground to make up, as he’s only a few hundred points behind No. 22 Matt McGillivray.
Johanne Defay
Put this one on the list with an asterisk. Defay withdrew from the first three stops of the 2023 tour with an injury, so even if she doesn’t make up enough ground on the next two stops she’ll have an inside track to the WSL injury wildcard for next year. Still, she’s worth mentioning here because she’s another competitor from last year’s WSL Finals that is currently sitting below the cut line.
Kelly Slater
Kelly Slater could be done for good if he doesn’t make the cut. Photo: WSL
Ok, I hate putting this name here. Why? Because yes, Kelly Slater is the greatest surfer of all time but I hate how irrational surf fans are about the guy nowadays. He won Pipe last year and made the semis at Teahupo’o — two contests entirely focused on tube riding. Outside of that, he was a non-threat at every stop. He missed most of the entire year before that. Surf fans seem to forget that Kelly Slater does not pull magic scores out of thin air like it’s still 2005, yet they talk about the guy like he’s winning every event. Nonetheless, his status over the next two contests will be talked about a lot and we’ll all be interested to see how it plays out.
