Photo: Brent Bielmann//World Surf League
The stakes don’t usually feel too high on day one of a Championship Tour contest. But Teahupo’o isn’t your typical tour stop, and the Tahiti Pro’s place as the final event before the WSL Finals meant a handful of surfers were paddling into their first wave with a lot on the line. It didn’t hurt that Chopes had been bombing just prior to the event and athletes were in a routine of packing some of their best waves of the year during freesurfs. High competitive stakes or not, it’s easy to be entertained watching guys truly enjoy A-plus conditions all to themselves.
Thursday’s action was an entertaining kickoff to the Tahiti Pro and the judges felt the level of surfing was up to snuff. Six surfers put together heats scored in the excellent range (16 points and above), and one of them wasn’t even enough to avoid the elimination round (Ethan Ewing’s Opening Round 16.57 to Cole Houshmand’s 17.73). That could have been catastrophic for Ewing had he then lost before the Round of 16, as it would have dropped him to sixth overall in the rankings and officially out of contention for a spot in the WSL Finals. Houshmand’s win in that same heat was propped up by a nine-point ride — one of three on the day. Here are those three nine-point waves, the highest scores handed out on Day 1 of the Tahiti Pro.
Cole Houshmand – Opening Round 9.00
This was Houshmand’s first wave of the day. He came out swinging.
Griffin Colapinto – Opening Round 9.33
Griff had the heat with or without this wave. It was his last of the day, it was inconsequential on the scorecard when the dust settled, but you have to imagine it felt good reminding everybody he can pull this out of his bag at any moment. This was a banger.
Jordy Smith – Elimination Round 9.5
Things really slowed down in this heat. Jordy Smith and Teiva Tairoa caught a total of six waves between them and neither surfer had a keeper score 15 minutes into the heat. Tairoa did eventually put up an 8.33 and then Teahupo’o shut down for more than 10 minutes. Jordy finally got his chance to answer, and this is what he did…
