It feels a bit strange starting the WSL season off in Hawaii, doesn’t it? With the Pipeline and Sunset events in the rearview, Hawaii is officially relieved of its duties playing host to Championship Tour contests. Next up are the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal at Supertubos followed by the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, and, as usual, the CT rankings are all shook up.
The World Surf League was kind enough to put the video you see above together to explain where everyone’s sitting and how they came to be sitting there, and the top five on the Men’s side are a clear indicator of the kind of surfer you need to be to crack that list in Hawaii.
John John Florence is wearing the yellow jersey, followed by Jack Robinson (who won at Sunset), Barron Mamiya, Jordy Smith, and Connor O’Leary. Kanoa Igarashi is in sixth, but he’s just 275 points behind O’Leary and will likely be hungry to crack the top five in the Portugal, a place he knows well and calls home for part of the year.
On the women’s side, Molly Picklum has come out swinging, pulling down a second-place finish at Pipeline and a win at Sunset. She’s tailed by Caity Simmers, Bettylou Sakura Johnson, Brisa Hennessy, and Caroline Marks.
The 2024 schedule is missing a few important players, though, which is likely a bit of a boon for their competitors. Carissa Moore, Stephanie Gilmore, and Filipe Toledo are all sitting out for the remainder of the year. While Gilmore and Toledo have announced that they plan on returning in 2025, Moore’s future is still unclear.
If conditions at Supertubos are as good as we know they can be, the top five on both sides stand a good chance of maintaining their positions. The place is hard to surf, producing big barrels that require serious commitment. In my opinion, any one of the women in the top five will stand a good chance of winning there, but on the men’s, surfers like John John and Jack who excel in heavier conditions might have a bit of an edge.
