After yesterday’s high voltage, stadium rock concert, we were presented with conditions more akin to a mellower acoustic set for finals day at the Lexus Pipe Pro. Adaptability is key if you want to be the queen or king of Pipe.
Quarter-final winner, Lakey Peterson put it well when articulating the kind of tactics that might be required. “A heat is a heat, and you have to compete and sometimes that doesn’t look the prettiest.”
Backdoor was the focus of the swell, but it was certainly not home to the fearsome caves of yesterday. Still, Caity Simmers gave us hope against Sawyer Lindblad in the women’s quarters as she faded a bottom turn with trademark insouciance, snapped under the lip for clean vision and then added the right dose of aggression as she yanked through a down-rail carve and outran the closeout. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, in that moment everyone watching wanted to be able to surf like Caity.
Italo Ferreira thrived in the opening quarter, turning the lineup into a dance floor – spinning, jiving, ducking, weaving, switch-footing and finding the tube. He turns and slashes at unique angles, while making a good case for Pipe as a performance playground when it’s smaller. When he’s in the mood Italo is an entertainment machine. He also seems to be in a better headspace this year.
Jake Marshall went within a whisker of defeating Barron Mamiya with a buzzer-beater barrel-turn combo. If they’d given Jake the 7.8, he needed, it would have been hard to argue with the decision, and it would have been a different day. A little more conviction in the finishing move might have nudged Jake over the line.
Kelly is old enough to have been beaten in a heat by Ian Gouveia’s dad, Fabio. When the Goat dropped a 7.33 mid-heat, we all dared to dream the impossible dream, flashing back to Kelly’s euphoric Pipe victory in 2022. However, Ian threw a left-right combo in a matter of minutes. The left went 8’s, the right went 7.17 and Kelly went a closeout. Suddenly Kelly was chasing a 7.85 as the clock ticked like a time bomb on his Pipe cameo. Kelly couldn’t pull his Houdini act with a final attempt and Ross Williams joked that the Gouveia family should open a restaurant called ‘Smoked Goat’ because father and son had both taken Kelly down. Ah what might have been if Kelly had kicked on to the final? No doubt a handful of WSL wildcards would have been tossed his way to keep him in the game.
As it was, Kelly was content with his multi-faceted retirement plan. “I might have to join Nathan Florence on the slab tour… and teach my kid how to poop on the toilet,” he quipped.
He did throw it out to the WSL for another wildcard at a venue with barrelling waves. We will certainly see Kelly again. This year – who knows? Maybe as a J-Bay treat.
In the women’s semi one, Tyler Wright was starting to make Pipe look like her comfy place, spearing through Backdoor tubes with supreme confidence against Lakey Peterson. However, the match-up of the day was a repeat of last year’s final with Molly Picklum vs Caity Simmers. Two helmeted warriors in an all-out tube duel.
Molly won the board-bumping battle in the opening moments for the first wave, but victory in the Argy bargy proved a poison chalice as the second wave was far better. Caity capitalised with a deft under the hood take-off that earned an 8.17.
Molly’s pro-active approach paid dividends on her second wave, a racier, stretched out wall that earned an 8.33. and a slight points advantage. However, Caity threw the knock-out blow with a long, racy barrel and seamless rail carve combo – 9.5.
Molly responded but her barrel wasn’t as deep and her carve not quite as clean. It came in at a 7.8. meaning Molly still needed a 9.35 to advance. A major ask.
Whoever won, this was still a perfect advertisement for women’s surfing. Two, fierce rivals elevating each other to new heights as they skimmed across translucent water and weaved behind liquid curtains; Pipe’s treacherous reef only a couple of inches below.
In the smaller, Backdoor conditions the natural footers had a clear advantage. It’s much easier to navigate falling chandeliers, clamping lips, shockwaves and fast sections on your forehand at Backdoor. At 25 Barron Mamiya has been in the Pipe lineup for around fifteen years. He could supply the google-map for the Pipe reef. Against Italo he went ultra-deep on the rights and deeper again on a shelfing left. As a natural-footer, Baron’s ability to snuff out the keggier lefts was a clear point of difference. With 17 minutes to go in their semi, Italo had an 8.5 but was still in a combo situation. Barron was operating in a different zone.
In the other semi, a focused Leo Fioravanti cruised past Ian Gouveia who was just happy to make a semi in his first comp back in surfing’s top-flight.
The women’s final was something of a fizzer. Caity had peaked against Molly and seemed mentally exhausted. Her finals performance was mistake-riddled and unassertive. The slack-limbed poise and intuitive positioning had deserted her.
Meanwhile, Tyler had enough in the tank to post one meaningful score and hold on with a heat total of 7.70. It was a victory for a tour veteran in a time when everyone is talking up the next generation of women. Women’s surfing at Pipe now has some depth to its modern history. Tyler has two Pipe titles, and the Picklum/Simmers rivalry has become part of the folklore. One can only assume that Erin Brooks will make her presence felt soon.
The men’s final immediately reminded us how good the waves were, as Barron put his foot on the accelerator and tried to blow Leo Fioravanti away in the first ten minutes. It seemed like the surfing equivalent of a round one boxing victory as Mamiya bolted to a 17.97 combination lead. It was tempting to turn the webcast off as an air of inevitability descended on the final. The commentators’ voices went a little flat, and minds drifted – maybe to the waves they wanted to ride that afternoon. However, as Barron continued to hunt, Leo Fioravanti staged one of the most stunning comebacks in pro-surfing history. The never-say-die Italian finessed his way through two, Backdoor drainers that trumped Mamiya for total tube time – even if they were arguably a little less intense. A heart-breaking turn of arithmetic, saw the scores tied when Leo’s waves were tallied, however Mamiya still had the highest score and subsequently the lead on a countback.
The Italian thrashed his hands in frustration, cursed the countback rule, and the judges too. The commentators tried to split the scores. Tube time vs intensity. Did Leo’s post-barrel turns mean anything? Would they have meant more if he didn’t claim too early and rode out cleaner, or were the turns not even factored in? We will never know. It certainly would have been fairer and more entertaining to send them back out for another thirty minutes. Resolution by countback didn’t seem to do justice to the heat.
Barron was still undeniably a worthy winner and had been surfing at an otherworldly level throughout the event. He’d eclipsed John John and Italo en route to victory (both world champions and Pipe Masters) and he’d also claimed big scores on rights and lefts, proving his versatility at Pipe. Barron now joins a very selective group who have claimed back-to-back victories at Pipe – Lopez, Rory Russell, Larry Blair, Tom Carroll, Kelly Slater and Andy Irons. He also goes one up on John John for Pipe wins; something he’ll enjoy. The real challenge for Barron now is to perform well in locations that may require a more versatile approach – like the upcoming wave pool contest in Abu Dhabi. In year’s past he has left Hawaii in the yellow jersey but failed to reach the top five by season’s end. Maybe this year will be different.
