By Lincoln Feast
(Reuters) – Australia’s Jack Robinson put on a tube-riding clinic to win the Shiseido Tahiti Pro on Wednesday, clinching a spot in surfing’s Final Five to decide a world champion and booking a ticket to the Paris Olympics at the same venue next year.
Caroline Marks got the better of a battle-scarred Caitlin Simmers in a low-scoring, all-American final on the women’s side in increasingly wind-affected waves at the dangerous reef break of Teahupo’o.
“Yeah, the waves got really tricky,” Marks said. “But this is a dream event to win, so I’m super pumped!”
Equal parts beauty and brutality, Teahupo’o is renowned as one of the world’s best waves, its shallow coral reef transforming thick Southern Ocean swells into perfect tropical tubes that will be a worthy test for Olympians next year.
Ahead of the contest, Australian Ethan Ewing experienced Teahupo’o’s ferocity, fracturing two vertebrae during a warmup and putting the world No. 3 in doubt for the one-day Rip Curl WSL Finals in California next month to decide a world champion.
Even with less-than-ideal conditions this week, the top surfers navigated heavy drops and deep barrels, no one more so than Robinson, a master tube-rider from Western Australia.
While Medina prowled the lineup catching tube after tube and racking up 15 points out of a possible 20 early in their final, Robinson was patient catching just a handful of waves but getting the longer, more technical barrel rides to pip Medina in the final minutes.
The win gives Robinson the remaining spot at next month’s Finals to go with his Olympic qualification secured earlier in the competition. Medina just missed out on both the Finals and the Brazil Olympic team.
The top 10 men and eight women at the end of this year’s WSL rankings will take the first 18 of 48 spots available for Olympics, with a maximum of two spots per gender, per country.
Simmers or Marks will qualify along with reigning world and Olympic champion Carissa Moore on Team USA depending on their final ranking after the Finals at Lower Trestles in San Clemente.
PROVISIONAL PARIS 2024 OLYMPIC QUALIFIERS FROM WSL TOUR
MEN
Filipe Toledo (Brazil)
Joao Chianca (Brazil)
Griffin Colapinto (USA)
John John Florence (USA)
Ethan Ewing (Australia)
Jack Robinson (Australia)
Leonardo Fioravante (Italy)
Kanoa Igarashi (Japan)
Jordy Smith (South Africa)
Matthew McGillivray (South Africa)
WOMEN
Carissa Moore (USA)
Caroline Marks or Caitlin Simmers (USA)
Tyler Wright (Australia)
Molly Picklum (Australia)
Tatiana Weston-Webb (Brazil)
Johanne Defay (France)
Brisa Hennessy (Costa Rica)
Teresa Bonvalot (Portugal)
RIP CURL WSL FINALS, SEPT 8-16, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Filipe Toledo (Brazil)
Griffin Colapinto (USA)
Ethan Ewing (Australia)
Joao Chianca (Brazil)
Jack Robinson (Australia)
Carissa Moore (Hawaii)
Tyler Wright (Australia)
Caroline Marks (USA)
Molly Picklum (Australia)
Caitlin Simmers (USA)
(Reporting by Lincoln Feast in Sydney; Editing by Jamie Freed)
