The Search has been good to Steph. Photo: Pierre Tostee//World Surf League
With minimum fuss, and even less fanfare, Steph Gilmore and Filipe Toledo will return to the Championship Tour in a few weeks. Now, they are a pair that aren’t often clumped together, but having won a combined 10 World Titles, and both opting out of 2024, their return to elite competition poses some fascinating questions.
As British Prime Minister Harold Wilson said, a year is a long time in surfing. In Toledo’s case, a lot has changed. It’s worth remembering that Filipe claimed his second back-to-back world titles at Trestles less than 13 months ago. It was an achievement that perhaps wasn’t met with the respect it deserved. It was pincered by two narratives. The first was that he had an unfair advantage with the WSL Finals being at Trestles. The second was his lack of success, for which you can substitute bravery, at Pipe and Teahupo’o.
Yet in 2023, Filipe won three events at Sunset, J-Bay and El Salvador, claimed a fifth at Pipe, and was the dominant surfer by a mile. By the 10th event, he’d amassed a 10,000 ratings lead, which under the old pre-Finals format would have had him wrapping up the title well in advance of any Pipe showdown.
He then still had to deliver under pressure on Finals Day. The points earned during the year act as no safety net. As in 2022, Filipe stood up, and comprehensively so. That the wave undeniably suits his surfing is no reason to add any asterisk to his titles. Though many surf journalists and fans did just that. It may be irrelevant, but how Filipe handled a fair amount of vitriol and above, and below-the-line, swipes with a smile and positive vibes only adds to his achievements.
And after 11 years without a break from full-time competition, his gap year to focus on his mental health was more than warranted. In that decade, he’d missed just four events through injury and the birth of his children, managed six top five finishes and claimed 15 CT wins. And while the haters pointed to his no-wave or low tally heats at Chopes and Pipe, the stats showed he always turned up, heat-by-heat, month-on-month, year-by-year.
How will the year off impact impact Toledo? The Tour has changed since he’s been gone. Photo: Brent Bielmann//World Surf League
But that was then, this is now. In his 12 months off, the WSL has tweaked the format and schedule, some might say partly in mitigation to Toledo’s Trestles’ domination. The Finals will now be held at Cloudbreak. Toledo had missed the last two events held in Fiji in 2024 and 2017. His poor results at the start of his career are perhaps too long ago to be a relevant data set. But in terms of a narrative arc, if Filipe makes the top five (as he has done every year since 2018), the redemption stakes could be huge. Fans might have forgotten what a fresh, fit and firing Toledo brings to the CT. Or as Monty Python said, “He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.”
Gilmore, on the other hand, might find her sabbatical has brought a whole facet of new challenges. Unlike Toledo, her issues have little to do with tweaks to the schedule. Gilmore’s main challenge is that, right now, nothing in surfing, apart from Medina’s Instagram followers, is moving with more pace than women’s surfing. While Steph was on the Search with Rip Curl, mixing alternative craft and cocktails, the likes of Caity Simmers, Molly Picklum, Erin Brooks and Sierra Kerr, were fraying the far edges of high-performance and slab surfing.
“It’s terrifying,” Gilmore told The Inertia, with her signature chuckle. “I wasn’t even sure whether to watch the webcasts. Be it Pipe, or in the air, the next-gen girls are going nuts. But I only compete to win. And I wouldn’t be back on the Tour if I didn’t think I had a shot.”
Gilmore, clearly, has nothing to prove. Eight world titles tends to take any asterisk well out of the equation. Her status as everybody’s favorite surfer and the female GOAT won’t be diminished by a poor run of results in 2025. Yet, her opponents would be wise not to underestimate her determination and desire to win. Making up the numbers doesn’t splice well with her DNA.
Pipeline will, however, prove a challenge to both surfers. Poor results won’t be fatal though, as their 10 world titles have shown, and the real signs will come across the pre-cut events. How two of the best surfers of all time come back after a year off will be one of the more interesting pro surfing storylines of 2025. If class is, as they say, permanent, I’d back both to continue their long history of success.
