With wins at the Philippines Pro, Caity Simmers and Gabriel Medina greatly increased their chances of winning the title at Pipeline. Both surfers improved on their second-place finishes in Portugal with wins at Cloud 9.
Simmers’ road to victory came via a tricky priority interference in her semifinal against Carissa Moore. With less than two minutes remaining, both surfers gave a half-hearted look at the same wave, causing the priority judge to change priority from Moore to Simmers. But both surfers wanted the next wave. Moore, now without priority, dropped in on Simmers, who wiped out.
The judges deemed it an interference on Moore, negating the wave she had ridden and her top score. Given the short interval between waves, it’s unclear how much time Moore had to process the priority change. Did the judges change the priority signal on the tower right away? Did her Apple Watch update immediately? You can hear the beach announcer in the background of the broadcast audio saying that red (Simmers) had priority as both surfers were dropping in. But the audio leading up to that moment is muddled, making it difficult to discern if it was the first time the change in priority had been announced.
“The priority judge went to review that situation and as he decided to change priority to red, they (had already committed) to paddling for the next wave,” said WSL VP of Tours and Competition Renato Hickel. “Apparently Caitlin checked the priority disk. Carissa said that she did and she saw blue, but it was already on red. We confirmed with our logs.”
Without Moore’s highest score, Simmers moved into the lead and advanced to the final, where she defeated Isabella Nichols. Had Moore passed that semifinal, she would have taken the rankings lead over Molly Picklum. Instead, she is sitting in second place, a mere 500 points behind Picklum heading into Pipeline. Simmers’ win moved her from sixth to third in the rankings, placing her right in the thick of the title race. The three world champs — Moore, Picklum, and Simmers — all have a shot at adding to their title counts at Pipeline.
As Simmers makes a late-season push for a title, Gabriel Medina is doing the same on the men’s side. Medina greatly improved his standing by taking out rankings leader Yago Dora in the semifinals. Had Dora won the event, he would have created a commanding lead at Pipeline. But by handing him a third-place finish and winning the event, Medina closed the gap.
Pulling to within 2,000 points of Dora, Medina now controls his destiny. Medina can take the title with a win at Pipeline regardless of what Dora does. While Italo Ferreira (third) and Griffin Colapinto (fourth) remain in contention, the way Dora and Medina have been surfing suggests the race will come down to one of those Brazilian goofyfooters.
After eliminating Dora, Medina continued his hot streak and took out Jack Robinson in the final. Medina’s prowess in the tube and the air looks like he’s firing on all cylinders. He’s finding his groove at the right time, heading into a venue on the North Shore where he’s proven he can win.
The Pipe Masters start December 8, but in the meantime, many of the CT surfers will head to Peru to compete in the ISA World Surfing Games November 6-15 for a chance to earn their countries an Olympic slot.
