Nearly two weeks straight of rain dumped on the Gold Coast leading into the event. Winter arrived early with the grace of Chernobyl Reactor Four. So when the sun finally held its ground on Friday, the local populace emerged from their homes pale and irritable, making Snapper Rocks feel less like the bronzed Australian playground that we know it to be.
But it only took a minute of thawing before the event rolled into Saturday, Sunday and Monday in a golden soymilk haze – sunshine, good sandbanks and exceptional surfing. The long Labour Day weekend was earned.
In recent years, Rainbow Bay has gotten the nickname “Rainbow de Janeiro.” That is to say, there are Brazilian expats everywhere. There is even an unofficial ‘Brazilian Corner’ of the beach, where the rocks begin to round the bend towards Greenmount. The Gold Coast has grown into a regional hotspot for Brazilians looking to uproot for better surf and better work opportunities. Of the alleged 10,000 people on the beach this weekend, it seemed a fair few thousand were speaking Portuguese, gathered in party rings of speakers, smokes and flags. The Gold Coast Pro is almost like a second Saquarema event, if that wasn’t already made obvious last year in the Julian vs. Filipe final at Burleigh.
Fitness coach Marcos Freitas, founder of Salt Performance Training and local event coach for Alejo Muniz and Mateus Herdy, moved to the Goldie 22 years ago. “Back at that time, we had less than 1,000 Brazilians here in our community. Now it’s at least five times that,” he said.
“With the surf events, they’re really passionate about it. They put in a lot of effort and want to support and be entertained. Like last year, Julian was yelling to Filipe in the water, like, ‘What are you doing? Tell these people to settle down.’ And Filipe is like, ‘What can I do? I can’t do anything.’ It’s just the way they are. It’s like a football field. But I think Australians have been dominating the entire surfing industry for almost 30 years. And Kelly… With any sport, every country sometimes dominates for so long that they get too comfy. And now we have the Brazilian Storm, and they know what they need to do to get results and bring everything to the next level,” Marcos continued.
The Brazilians did well this weekend – they didn’t claim a finals win, but Medina and Luana Silva both won brand new GMW Tank 300’s, while event winners Ethan Ewing and Steph Gilmore won large keychains. Medina, despite getting knocked out by Toledo in Round Three, holds onto the yellow jersey and won the Aussie Treble by points. Luana took runner-up to Steph, but confidently heads to Raglan in yellow for the women’s side.
Two-time event winner Filipe Toledo surfed nobly against Connor O’Leary in the semifinals, as low tide allowed for max capacity Australia vs. Brazil fandom to fizz across the sand. Both men were on fire, but the goofy-footed Lennox man was tasting a rainbow we haven’t seen before, scoring the two highest men’s heat totals of the day.
In the other men’s semifinal, Ethan Ewing slaughtered the hero of an entire busload of Burleigh children. The sea of Liam O’Brien cut-out faces fell from the skyline Mary Antoinette style, at the conclusion of a tragically close heat that left one child sulking, “I’m not going to school tomorrow.”
Connor started out strong in the final against Ethan, scoring a slight lead of a 6.50 over Ethan’s 6.00. Ethan quickly tackled his stress with a 8.33 that Connor ultimately couldn’t recover from. The crowd was buzzing for Connor to get to the end of his rainbow, but Ethan was long overdue for an event win. His only previous wins were J-Bay in 2022 and Bells in 2023 – a number too few for his stature.
Luana had Steph for a brief moment in the final, scoring a 7.00 after Steph fell on her second wave. Luana has been hot-out-the-gates in only her second season on tour, having placed second at Marg’s and fifth at Bells. It would have been absolutely diabolical if she had taken down Ms. Queen in her casa; Steph wrangled herself into place and ultimately had Luana combo-ed with an iconically executed 9.50 and 7.13. I’m not going to use the G-word.
There’s been speculation as to what Steph’s motivation was to come back to the tour after two years away. Naturally, it brings up comparisons to Carissa. But when asked if there was anything she learned during her time away that surprised her, Steph was refreshingly frank: “Nah. I kind of knew I was gonna take time off and then be really jealous that I wasn’t competing with the women,” she said.
“It’s a bit of an ego death, watching these girls charge at a new level and wishing I were a part of it. If anything, I just learned that I still want to do it. Because it could have gone either way, and there were definitely moments where I was like, ‘Oh, I should probably just wrap it up.’ But I’m a competitor, and I love to be challenged because that’s how you grow. It was important to really think about what it feels like to not have that identity of being on the world tour. You can win a bunch of trophies, but then the next event happens, and there’s a new champion, and if you’re not comfortable with yourself and grateful for the life you live, then you can get lost in an identity crisis,” she added.
Sounds like a good kind of energy to bring to Raglan. All eyes on NZ.
