Race For WSL Final 5 Intensifies As Championship Tour Heads To Rio

The Oi Rio Pro is shaping up to be the most pivotal event of the season, as three Brazilian veterans – with four world titles between them – attempt to kick down the door to the Top Five. Gabriel Medina, Italo Ferreira, and Yago Dora will be urged on by a fever pitch home crowd as they go head to head with Top Five incumbents and tourists, Jordy Smith, Ethan Ewing and Griffin Colapinto. It doesn’t get more high stakes or, where the tourists are concerned, inhospitable than this.

Traditionally the Rio Pro serves up the full spectrum of beachbreak conditions. Unpredictable at times, with lefts and rights, and scoring opportunities everywhere and nowhere at the same time depending on one’s strike rate and skill set, the event is bound to be packed with drama, suspense, priority tussles, last-ditch-wins and losses.

World number 8 Yago Dora is the defending Oi Rio Pro Champ, dropping a ten on his way to victory last year, and comes into the event with a runner-up finish in El Salvador amidst some of the most progressive surfing the Tour has ever seen. He is a massive threat to take this thing out, consolidate his top five position at Cloudbreak, then potentially claim a world title at a wave that couldn’t suit his new school stylings any better.

As much as the pressure is on the top five to defend their spots, the expectations of the home crowd has proved toxic to Brazil’s other two title contenders. Neither  Gabriel Medina nor Italo Ferreira have found form in Rio. Italo has broken through to the semi final stage here just twice out of seven attempts, the last of which was in 2022. Medina’s success rate here is even worse, making just two semi-finals in 11 attempts, the most recent of which was way back in 2016.

Should they fail to get the job done, all three Brazilians will still fancy their chances at snatching a spot in the top five at Cloudbreak, where Jordy, Ethan and Griffin, all natural footers, are again likely to find themselves under a tonne of pressure with their backs literally against the wall.

 

João Chianca did his Brazilian compatriots a massive favor in El Salvador after employing questionable tactics to get the better of Griffin Colapinto in their Round of 16 heat. Griffin was philosophical in the aftermath of the controversy, saying on Instagram he’d use the result to “dig deeper and learn from my mistakes. If I can take any positives from this, it’s that I can come from behind and still perform my best under pressure,” he wrote. Kelly Slater was less appreciative of the judges decision to throw a triangle at Griffin, commenting below Griffin’s post, “The interference was beyond lame. He paddled at a 45 degree angle into you from where the wave couldn’t even be ridden. Yes, you also put yourself in that position but I felt it was the wrong call. Nice surfing.”

In any case, Griffin, who brings a last-place finish and a ninth into this event, is sure to turn up locked and loaded for Brazil and very unlikely to succumb to the same trick twice. His creativity, aerial aptitude, intuitive read of lumpy beachbreak conditions, and razor-sharp rail game has him well primed to arrest his dip in results. But there will be plenty of pressure on him with thousands of local fans expected to turn out and cheer their Brazilian chargers on.

The potential of peaky, rampy, disorganized beachbreaks doesn’t exactly scream ‘Ethan Ewing’ either, who comes into the event ranked number four in the world off back-to-back Round of 16 exits. The blonde, all-Australian pointbreak specialist will stick out like the proverbial dogs balls, to borrow from his native lexicon, and find himself public enemy number one as he desperately tries to defend his spot in the top five. As buttery in beachbreaks as he is on points, his weakness – at least compared to the Brazilians – is his aerial attack, and this will likely to figure if past Oi Rio Pros are any gauge. What he lacks in the air, however, he can more than make up for with the most sublime slice-and-dice game the Tour may have ever seen. He needs to unlock it here to have any chance.

Jordy Smith’s Final Five tilt has caught everyone by surprise following more than a decade of patchy CT results. There is no denying the big South African’s pedigree when he finds his mark. Massive carves, committed lip line attacks, and big aerials have been his trademark since exploding on the scene in the late noughties, but dealing with pressure has proved his undoing time and time again. Can he withstand an all-out Brazilian barrage on home soil? Find out June 22nd when the waiting period begins.

On the women’s side, the situation is no less tense, with the field wide open when it comes to potential top five contenders. Caity Simmers, who wears the yellow leader’s jersey, has bought herself some breathing room heading into the last two events of the regular season. She’ll be looking to lock in her spot in Brazil – her versatility, consistency, and new school technical stylings are peerless and perfectly suited to the Brazilian beach break.

World number two, Caroline Marks, is certain to be a threat come Trestles, where she will favor her near-unbeatable backhand, but she has to get there first and the unpredictable lefts and rights of Rio could expose her vulnerabilities. Her form has not been great here, making the semi finals just once in 2023, and a quarter final in 2022, and the Round of 16 in her other two starts.

World number three, Brisa Hennessy, will be looking to halt her slide down the ratings after relinquishing the yellow leader’s jersey in El Salvador on the back of a 5th-place finish. An early round loss won’t be too alarming, however, with the tour rounding on Cloudbreak next, a wave she’s spent more time at than anyone else on tour.

It’s Australian world number four, Molly Picklum, who brings all the pressure into this event having failed to put a solid event together since winning Sunset back in February. Despite opening up a mammoth lead over the rest of the field with an era-defining Hawaiian winter (2nd at Pipe, 1st at Sunset), she’s failed to make it past the quarter finals since. Anything less than a semi final finish here could prove disastrous to her top five ambitions.

World number five, Johanne Defay, finds herself in a similar position (on the exact same ratings tally as Molly) following a pair of Round of 16 losses and a quarterfinal loss in El Salvador. Like Picklum, Defay caught fire in the early part of the season with a win in Portugal and a runner-up at the following event (Bells), but has struggled for form since.

Looking down the list from there it’s a case of take-your-pick. Gabriela Bryan looks to have found her rhythm with a win and a runner-up in finish in her last three starts, along with some of the most lead-footed lines ever seen in women’s surfing. The quick-twitch reflexes and lightning rail work of world number seven, Betty Lou Sakura Johnson, is sure to suit the beachbreaks of Brazil. And don’t count out the veterans Tatiana Weston Webb and Tyler Wright, who are only one big result away from leap-frogging into the top five and bringing plenty of experience in pressure scenarios to this event and the next at Cloudbreak.