Editor’s Note: This feature is brought to you by our partners at Vans.
On Friday, the Vans Triple Crown event window came to a fiery close after a month of non-stop action on the North Shore of Oahu, giving the judges just three days to score the last few rides that filtered in and determine the winners of the coveted Vans Triple Crown, as well as the winners of the Fan Voting Award, and the Videographer awards. In the end, John John Florence and Carissa Moore came away with the coveted Triple Crowns, going back-to-back on their Triple Crown wins from last year.
Overall, 95 athletes competed for the $217,000 prize purse, submitting a total of 320 waves. In the end, only 25 athletes met all of the criteria to win, such as riding progressive craft, filming two waves at all three locations, and submitting all waves by midnight on January 21.
Carissa led the women in points at Pipeline. Photo: Jimmy Wilson//Vans
Carissa Moore was easily the biggest winner of the event, walking away with $66,500 and a clean sweep in every single category, winning the Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa, World Cup at Sunset Beach, Pipe Masters at Pipeline, Fan Favorite, and the Women’s Overall Vans Triple Crown of Surfing Championship.
“I’ve never surfed Pipe and Sunset as much as I did this winter. Those are two really challenging waves,” said Carissa Moore, who won her second Vans Triple Crown championship. “It was great motivation to get out there and keep pushing the limits of what we can do.”
And push the limits she did, coming away with huge scores at all three venues. The top three highest women’s scores are all Carissa’s, with a 27.7 and 25.5 out of 30 possible points at Pipeline, and a 25 at Haleiwa. Her overall score was a whopping 142.7 points, second only to John John and a full 40 points more than the next two competitors on the women’s side, Brisa Hennessy who came away with 100.9 points, and Zoë McDougall who scored 100.6 overall. Carissa’s two Pipeline waves also won her the Fan Vote, with the 27.7 coming in first with 104 votes.
Photo Courtesy of Vans.
On the men’s side John John started things off slow, submitting only a couple of Pipeline waves during the first half of the event window. But once John John started submitting clips, there was little question about who would be crowned the Men’s Triple Crown champion. He came away with a combined 162 points, the most out of any surfer in the competition. He scored over 50 points at each of the three locations, and all of his final waves scored 24 points or higher, a phenomenal feat that no other surfer came close to.
A classic John John turn at Haleiwa. It doesn’t get better than that. Photo: Jimmy Wilson//Vans.
“You just don’t know any more with this format because anybody can be at any spot whenever,” said John John Florence, who claimed his fifth Vans Triple Crown championship title of his career with this win. “Especially when you have waves in the eight to 10-foot range for a lot of the days, where all three spots are good. It’s tough competition.”
Surprisingly, the one venue where John John did not claim victory was his home break of Pipeline. Californian Crosby Colapinto came from behind to take the Pipe Masters win with a 27.8 and a 26.2, which catapulted him into second place in the overall men’s rankings with 135.9 points. Billy Kemper also had a strong showing at Pipeline, with the highest scoring wave of the entire event, 28.9 points for an insanely deep barrel (above) submitted late in the event window on January 19. He landed in fourth place with 122.6 points, being edged out of third by Barron Mamiya’s 130.3 points. The Men’s Fan Vote was awarded to Tomas Hermes for his wave at Haleiwa.
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A new category this year was the Videography Awards, recognizing the filmers who make such a digital event possible and awarding them with checks of up to $10,000 dollars for the hard work they put in over the past month. Layne Stratton and Ana Romanio were recognized through the Women’s Filmer Award for their work documenting female surfers, while Erik Knutson and Guillem Cruells took home the Men’s Filmer Award.
All of the winners were announced during the official awards ceremony which aired last night and is available to watch both above and on Vanstriplecrownofsurfing.com. Congratulations to all of the winners, and to Vans for hosting such a well-run digital event (not an easy feat) for the second year in a row.
