Caroline Marks is one goffy-footer who’s proven she can own the roping rights at Punta Roca Photo: Aaron Hughes//World Surf League)
After enduring a relentless storm and chilly winds in Portugal, the Championship Tour is on a transatlantic flight to warmer weather in El Salvador. I can assure you that no one will be preparing for their heats in wetsuits and sneakers at Punta Roca; they will be seeking out the comfort of air-conditioned rooms before hopping in the dehydrating, 86-degree bathtub water.
Stop number three of the tour in Portugal shook up the rankings a bit, but the leaders, Caity Simmers and Italo Ferreira, held onto their top spots. After tour stops at a pounding reef break, a wave pool, and a shifty beach break, the surfers will be presented with a new challenge at a playful, cobblestone point.
Here are three thoughts to chew on ahead of the 2025 Surf City El Salvador Pro.
Can the goofies keep up with the regulars?
Interestingly enough, the two surfers coming into El Salvador fresh off their wins in Portugal, Yoga Dora and Caroline Marks, have historically been the goofy-footers who fare best at Punta Roca. Marks has won the event two years in a row and Dora was runner-up last year. It’d be hard not to look at those two as early favorites.
But their performances are rather unique. Goofy-footers have struggled at Punta Roca. The men’s round of 16 included just four goofies in 2022, three in 2023, and four in 2024. A male goofy has never won and Yago was the only one to crack the final. And while women goofy-foots have been relatively sparse on tour (Marks and Tatiana Weston-Webb were the only full-time goofies in 2023), Marks is the only one to have ever made it past women’s quarters in El Salvador.
A few new goofy-footers have entered the fray this year looking to change those trends. Erin Brooks and her aerial surfing is well-suited for Punta Roca, and Vahine Fierro is another newcomer goofy who can whip a tight snap on her backhand. On the men’s side, rookie Jackson Bunch will be interesting to watch with his deep bag of tricks.
Best of luck to those surfing right-foot forward.
El Salvador: the litmus test
With just three years on tour, the sample size of El Salvador results is small. However, thus far El Salvador has consistently been a good barometer of who might go on to win the world title.
Let’s look at how the eventual world champs fared in El Salvador each year:
In 2022, Steph Gilmore won the event and Filipe Toledo got second. In 2023, Filipe Toledo and Caroline Marks both won. In 2024, John John Florence won and Caity Simmers got third.
In other words, the world champs have won in El Salvador in 66 percent of the samples – they made the final in 83 percent. No one has ever won the title without at least making the semifinals at Punta Roca.
I know we only have three editions of the event to work with, and one might highlight that world champs win a lot of events. But, thus far, performing well in El Salvador has been a good indicator of who is a true title contender. No one has thrown away a bad result in El Salvador and gone on to win that year.
The fact that the Finals were held at Trestles, a somewhat similar cobblestone wave, might have played a factor in that trend. A win in El Salvador this year might not translate well to a finals performance in Fiji. But perhaps there is something about a playful, performance point break that brings out the best in a world-champ caliber surfer.
Filipe Toledo, gearing up for a title run in 2023. Punta Roca has been a solid indicator of title chases, even with the small sample size. Photo: WSL
What would surfing look like without El Salvador?
If you had posed this question before the pandemic, it would have been easy to answer. El Salvador essentially played no role in the outcome of professional competitive surfing.
But since it hosted its first big event, the 2021 World Surfing Games Olympic qualifier, El Salvador has clawed its way to becoming one of the world’s most important locations for professional surfing.
They’ve held the CT event for four years and counting, hosted two Olympic qualifiers, run ISA and WSL longboard events, and inked a deal for six more major events with the ISA over the next three years.
It’s like a broken record every year, but El Salvador has carved out a powerful place for itself in competitive surfing. First, they lured the ISA and WSL with an open checkbook, but then they convinced them to keep coming back by actually delivering quality events.
President Nayib Bukele will be in power until 2029, so it’s likely that we can expect the same playbook for the foreseeable future. I’d wager money they will host one of the LA 2028 Olympic qualifiers.
But imagine a world where El Salvador decided to stop hosting surf events. It would create a big gap to fill. In an era where sponsorship dollars and event funding have been getting increasingly harder to find in surfing, El Salvador has appeared as a guardian angel, willing to pay for the sport’s most costly events. Luckily for surfing, I don’t think the powers that be will have to consider the hypothetical scenario where El Salvadorian money doesn’t exist anytime soon.
