After a challenging week with lay days, Rona scares, unfavourable winds and mediocre waves, G-Land cleaned herself up nicely for Finals Day. But it’s been a trip. Literally.
For the cream of the crop of the Dream Tour, the jungle experience hasn’t been easy. A pumping swell gradually tapered off right before the start of the waiting period, which left surfers scrambling for scores in the water and scrambling for anything to do to keep a sharp mind on land.
That’s the B-roll side of the Cream Tour. 24 lads, 12 women trapped in the jungle with no waves, spread across a handful of camps a few hours away from the post-midnight regrets of the Bali nightlife, no doubt FOMO has been kicking in hard. Once FOMO kicks in, keeping your mind right with nothing to do other than having breakfast, lunch, and dinner looking at the same faces while waiting for waves is challenging from a competitor’s perspective.
While for most of us, dodging responsibilities and real-life somewhere tropical with nada to do sounds like an inevitable blessing, but not so much if your job description includes racking up points and travelling for the better part of the year to challenge for a world title.
As a result, we headed into the tail end of the comp with a few usual suspects’ names missing from the fight cards. No John. No Kolohe or Italo. No Tyler or Courtney means two things; big names still in the mix hoping to pounce on the opportunity to surf “easier” heats while lower-seeded surfers like Sally, Connor or Matty G will no doubt jump up the rankings heading into El Salvador. Just as the great Sun Tzu once said, “in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” This is G-Land, in a nutshell, this year.
Quarterfinals
The WSL’s decision to throw the women back into the Banyuwangi pool first thing of the day wasn’t surprising, but the Carissa vs Sally Fitz matchup was. Carissa got the nod with a pair of 7’s, but Sally Fitzgibbons’ performance turned heads. The two ladies went blow for blow, sitting at opposite sides of the strategy spectrum. Carissa was patient. She attacked when she had to and played chess when she wanted to. On the other hand, Sally assaulted everything that moved at an Italo-Esque pace! She caught a total of 11 waves, looking revitalised after the heartbreak in Western Australia.
Enough has been said about the WSL’s decision to gift Sally Fitz with a wildcard, but if she keeps ripping as she did here at G-Land, the decision will soon look like a stroke of genius by Elo and the gang.
Tati ripped through Lakey P in one of the better Heats, while Bronte took out previous World Number 1 Brisa Hennessy and Jo Defay slew the queen Steph Gilmore.
On the men’s side, take a bow, Gabriel Medina! Gabby was just playing in Quarterfinal Heat 1, featuring everybody’s favourite human in Jadson Andre. Jaddy got busy early with a solid 6.33, but Medina answered with cutthroat turns and an 8.50.
He’s a fucking bully. And we love it! Gabby’s 8.77 was the best wave ridden in the jungle to this point, and he walked away with the highest heat total of the event. Not too bad for a wildcard, right?!
Jack takes out Kanoa, and Connor kills good pal Matty McGillivray in Heat 2 and 4, but it was Heat 3 that was the talk of the town (strikethrough) land camps. Filipe won the Heat. He showed Grif, who’s boss after the loss in Portugal, but he also showed the judges that he wasn’t happy with the performance in the tower. Underscored, pissed, fired up, and only one gear in his repertoire (full throttle) makes for an excellent recipe for the most entertaining post Heat interview at G-Land. Laura loved it. We did too!
Semis
I’m keeping this short-ish to have some ink left for the last dance. Carissa took out (perhaps) the most in-form surfer in Tatiana Weston Webb. A couple of steezy backhand whips did the trick for Ris to advance to the first-ever women’s Final, where she will be up against Johanne Defay.
Jo Defay hustled it out against Bronte with a solid pair of scores against the G-Land wildcard. A relatively slow Heat for today’s standards, both women surfed four waves each, and there wasn’t much that separated Defay from Bronte Mac.
On the men’s side, we climaxed quickly! The buzzer-beater moment between Jack Rob and Gabby was wild. Let’s define the term coming in clutch for a second. As every serious journalist would do, I turn to the Urban Dictionary in these moments. Coming in clutch can be described as if someone or something comes in during a time of immediate or dire need or a reference to someone working under pressure.
It’s safe to say that both definitions apply to the last 15 seconds (give n’ take) in Semifinal Number 1. I had already written the headline for Gabby’s victorious return to the Fun Tour, but Jacky Rob had other plans. Taking off literally with the buzzer, Jack threw claims halfway through the barrel, leaving Medina looking like a schoolboy whose parents forgot to pick him up as he sat on the ski minutes after the Heat. At the same time, Robinson channelled his inner Occy for a pretty bizarre, trippy, deep (insert your own adjective here) post Heat interview.
Semifinal number 2 was less dramatic. Toledo will keep his spot closest to the sun for the moment with his win against Connor O’Leary. Connor never seemed to challenge the fastest surfer on tour, mainly due to an equipment malfunction of his Mayhem blade. Filipe didn’t care, smiling from the ski after his Heat win. Peace has been restored – all love in the jungle again.
Finals
Viva La France! Jo Defay’s vertical snaps were too much for Ris, who never seemed to find the juice against the powerful French women until the last few minutes of the Heat. Ris almost capitalised on a Defay error who got clamped on a G-Land pit with 2 minutes left on the clock. But her 8.50 wasn’t enough to topple Johanne Defay off the podium for what would have been her 25th career win. On the flip side, Jo wins her 5th event taking out the inaugural Roxy G-Land Pro with a couple of mid-to-pretty-good-range scores, cementing her title as the queen of lefthand reefbreaks after winning in Fiji and Uluwatu in previous years.
In the last Heat of the event, the ocean threw a temper tantrum once again. A pretty slow, sluggish Heat between Jack Robinson and Filipe Toledo until, of course, a few seconds before the buzzer. Then, despite the glare, making my eyes go partially blind occasionally, I witnessed Deja Vu as Robbo took off, sped down the line, hack one, hack two, end section elevator, followed by a no-claim claim for the win.
What’s wrong with you, Jack?! It appears that Robbo doesn’t want to win like the rest. Instead, he wants to make it hard. His goal? To break his opponent’s neck. Leave them heartbroken and confused with last-second heroics. Congratulations – you succeeded.
Twice!
Make no mistake. Coming in clutch once in an event is luck, but doubling down on it in back to back heats is lethal; assassin-type tactics that require significant mental strength. This is some Slater like mind game shenanigans!
Filipe, though, can’t be too upset with his performance despite missing out on the tiger, still repping the yellow lycra sitting on the Cream Tour throne heading into El Salvador.
Stay tuned for a shake-up on the rankings, too, as the circus traverses the world en route to the Bitcoin nation. Until then, I’m returning to Bali to practice the shimmy on the Gu floors.
Men’s Final results
Jack Robinson – 13.50
Felipe Toledo– 13.16
Women’s Final results
Johanne Defay– 14.00
Carissa Moore – 13.33
Women’s Semi-final results
Heat 1
Carissa Moore – 13.83
Tatiana Weston-Webb – 7.50
Heat 2
Johanne Defay– 13.66
Bronte Macaulay – 13.33
Men’s Semi-final results
Heat 1
Jack Robinson – 13.90
Gabriel Medina – 13.33
Heat 2
Felipe Toledo – 12.00
Connor O’Leary – 10.47
Women’s quarterfinal results
Heat 1
Carissa Moore – 14.87
Sally Fitzgibbons – 13.14
Heat 2
Tatiana Weston-Webb – 13.36
Lakey Peterson – 13.03
Heat 3
Bronte Macaulay – 12.43
Brisa Hennessy – 9.83
Heat 4
Johanne Defay – 12.90
Stephanie Gilmore – 12.60
Men’s quarterfinal results
Heat 1
Gabriel Medina – 17.27
Jadson Andre – 11.66
Heat 2
Jack Robinson – 14.17
Kanoa Igarashi – 11.47
Heat 3
Felipe Toledo – 12.60
Griffin Colapinto – 8.84
Heat 4
Connor O’Leary – 12.77
Matthew McGillivray – 11.00
