Carissa Moore is making a strong case as a favorite for the 2026 Championship Tour. After taking two seasons off and giving birth to her first daughter in April, the five-time world champion has returned to competition without missing a beat, taking the win at the WSL Pipe Pro Qualifying Series event on Oahu’s North Shore.
Moore’s victory comes just weeks after a second-place finish at the Haleiwa Pro, her first time wearing a competition jersey since she competed while pregnant at the Paris 2024 Olympics last July.
“Expectations were low going into this event,” Moore wrote on Instagram. “I haven’t spent nearly enough time out at Pipe and Backdoor yet and was looking at this as an opportunity to reacquaint myself with the lineup and get some more practice in the jersey. I went into it with a curiosity, can I do this differently? With all the distractions and things going on around me, can I figure this out?”
Despite her time away from Pipe, Moore found tubes where her competitors struggled. And that’s no surprise. Over her Championship Tour career, she has one win and two runner-up finishes in four appearances at Pipeline.
She defeated Gabriela Bryan, who finished second, Ruby Berry in third, and Eweleiula Wong in fourth.
“This was an emotional win,” Moore continued. “Coming back from so much time off, having my daughter, there have been so many doubts, questions, and unknowns. The beginning of last year, I walked up this beach after a heartbreaking round one loss not sure if I’d ever surf a heat out here again or return to competitive surfing. Yesterday, I got chaired up the beach with my daughter in my arms.”
On the men’s side, John John Florence similarly showed he’s ready for a Championship Tour return in 2026 after also taking the 2025 season off. Florence completed an air reverse in the final that lifted him from fourth to second, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Eli Hannenman’s alley-oop at Backdoor, which secured his win. Barron Mamiya finished third, with Shion Crawford in fourth.
It was Florence’s first competition back after taking the year off. He’ll be gunning for his fourth world title in 2026. The positive effects of stepping away are hard to ignore: both Moore and Florence look free of rust and capable of adding another world title to their respective trophy cases.
