There is something toxically pleasing to the human brain to tell another person, “I told you so.” If not for that urge, why else would we make preseason predictions about surfing? To be narcissists and gloat about our surfing analysis? Or maybe to make some money via the sports gambling industry taking over the world?
Anyway, as a surf journalist, I was inclined to jump into the fray of CT predictions back in January. Now that the season has wrapped up, I took a moment to see how these prophecies performed. In some areas, I succeeded with flying colors, while in others, my “guesses” were horribly wrong. Here are the results of five pre-season predictions I made.
Prediction 1: Caity Simmers will fill the void (left by Carissa Moore and Steph Gilmore) and become the consensus best female competitive surfer in 2024.
Result: Correct
After a fourth-place finish during her rookie CT season, Caity Simmers’ career looked primed to explode during her second go. And there was no sophomore slump. Simmers garnered three event wins and held her pole position at the WSL Finals.
Her path closely resembles that of Carissa Moore. Both burst onto the scene as teenagers and both won their maiden titles during their second year on tour at 18 years old.
Is there a soul on Earth who argues that Simmers isn’t the best female surfer right now? Crickets… I was ready to give Caity this crown after seeing her incredible surfing at a mysterious right-hand point on Surfline’s “Maps to Nowhere,” but the addition of the 2024 title leaves no doubt in mind.
Women’s surfing was as exciting as ever this year and that was in large part thanks to the progression of Caity Simmers.
This Olympic tube was easily one of the most epic waves of Medina’s career. Photo: ISA
Prediction 2: Medina becomes a four-time champ. Simmers becomes a first-time champ.
Result: Half correct
While I nailed the Simmers prediction on the head, I swung and missed with my Medina pick. After a slow start to the season, Medina looked like he was going to make a legitimate run for the Final 5 in the second half of the schedule. Needing a finals appearance in Fiji, he fell flat with a fifth, resulting in a seventh place overall on the 2024 CT ranking.
It was an off-year for Medina, his first full year on tour without an event win since his rookie season in 2013. However, he showed plenty of times in 2024 that he’s still in the upper echelon of surfers on tour, especially in his Olympic performance at Teahupo’o. I might double down on my bet and pick him to win in 2025. He’s due.
Prediction 3: Kelly will surf his last CT season in 2024. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make guest appearances at his wave pool in the years to come.
Result: TBD/probably correct
Kelly Slater’s 2024 season consisted of four 17ths and a missed event due to injury. He looked like a 1980s clunker car sputtering on its final miles before getting relegated to eternity in a junkyard. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pleasing to watch Slater freesurf good waves, but his competitive edge left him years ago.
He easily missed the cut and doesn’t appear a likely candidate to receive a wildcard again, which I imagine will go to Filipe Toledo and Joao Chianca.
I think my prediction will hold true that Slater will not compete full time on the CT in 2025, but he’ll probably at least make a wildcard appearance at his Abu Dhabi pool which was just announced as a tour stop.
Johanne Defy: still the only non-U.S., non-Hawaiian, or non-Australian resident having an impact on the CT. Photo by Matt Dunbar//World Surf League
Prediction 4: The new crop of surfers on the men’s CT will be impactful and make the cut at over a 50 percent rate. For the women, it will be less than 50 percent.
Result: Half correct
Going into the 2024 season, I was high on the new crop of men and low on the new crop of women. As it turns out, they both struggled.
For the men, four of the 10 Challenger Series qualifiers made the cut, lower than my 50 percent prediction. Cole Houshmand, Imaikalani deVault, Jake Marshall, and the rookie of the year, Crosby Colapinto, were the only mid-season survivors. I had higher hopes.
For the women, Sawyer Lindblad was the only surfer of the five CS qualifiers to make the cut – making my less than 50 percent prediction true. My thought process was largely based on how talented the incumbent women on tour were.
To put things in perspective, the 2023 CS class was much stronger: 60 percent of the women and 60 percent of the men made the cut. Three of those surfers even made the Final 5, a feat that no newcomer accomplished in 2024.
Prediction 5: In the near term, the U.S. and Australia will continue to dominate women’s surfing. In the long term – five to 10 years – we will see many more countries join the fray.
Result: TBD
In recent years the men’s CT has seen a surge in country diversity. Surfers like Ramzi Boukhiam from Morocco and Rio Waida from Indonesia not only made the tour, but had great success. It’s the first sign of a break from the dominance of the traditional powerhouse nations of the U.S., Australia, and Brazil.
However, women’s professional surfing has yet to experience this international breakthrough. If you consider the fact that Tatiana Weston-Webb, Luana Silva, and Brisa Hennessy were all raised in Hawaii and changed nations for Olympic qualification purposes, then the women’s 2024 CT was almost exclusively Australian and American. France’s Johanne Defay was the only non-anglophone.
It’s too early to see into the future, but I still think that in five to 10 years we will see this power balance start to spread more evenly around the world. The Olympics incentivizing countries to invest in surfing (see China’s Siqi Yang) coupled with the regional qualification for the CS should lead to more diversity.
