Tristan Guilbaud has been the quintessential QS grinder for a few years now. From his first full-time campaign in 2015 where he ranked 215th by year’s end to today, sitting inside the top 50 and earning his spot on the CT’s Challenger Series.
Competitively speaking, Tristan kept himself busiest in 2019 when he donned contest jerseys in Israel, the Canary Islands, Brazil, Australia, Peru, Portugal, and Japan all before the end of April. Starting that August, he entered another run of contests through just about every country in Europe with a coastline before finishing off the year in Hawaii for the Triple Crown. Through 52 weeks, he notched scores in 20 contests and too many countries to count. He was clearly on a roll.
And then 2020 came. Technically, the WSL’s pause on competition through most of the year didn’t wipe out any of Tristan’s progress in the rankings, but there’s no denying the risk to momentum. According to videographer David Berthet, we shouldn’t worry about that. Berthet followed Guilbaud around during a recent run of swell between Hossegor and Capbreton and has been singing the QS pro’s praises.
“Guilbaud seems to have started again on the same foot in 2021,” he told The Inertia. “He is also such a humble guy,” he added. “In France, we often see the same people and (Tristan) is one that you really need to know.”
