Your new Championship Tour rankings leader, Yago Dora. Photo: Emma Sharon//WSL
First, Leo Fioravanti went down. Then Gabriel Medina. Then Griffin Colapinto. Then Italo Ferreira. The crumbly conditions at the Trestles Pro devastated the top of the men’s Championship Tour rankings. It’s created a golden opportunity for Yago Dora to build some cushion heading into the postseason.
After the WSL canceled Abu Dhabi, they factored a throwaway event into the rankings. As a result, Ferreira and Fioravanti swapped the top spot, with the Italian leading ahead of Trestles. Dora, the defending world champ, was in third. But now, after the Trestles Pro has slayed the rest of the surfers in the top-5, Dora will lead the tour heading into Supertubos.
If Dora wins Trestles — as he did last year — he could build a nearly 7,000-point lead over second-place Fioravanti. But since the final event of the season at Pipeline is weighted 1.5 times the other events, with 15,000 points for the winner, a lead that would have felt comfortable in the past will not be safe this season. Pipeline has the potential to shake up the rankings drastically.
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Dora took down Kauli Vaast in round three and will take on Callum Robson in the quarterfinals. He also has Kanoa Igarashi and Marco Mignot on his side of the bracket.
Lowers “feels like a second home to me,” Dora said in his post-heat interview. “I love this wave, the town, the people.”
“It’s cool to see I am in the title fight again,” he added. “Fighting for another world title is special for me. All that matters is who is wearing the yellow jersey at (the first) event next year. That’s when I want to be wearing yellow.”
