Yago Dora certainly has the right stance to be a favorite in Fiji. And he just needs one heat win for a world title. Photo: Matt Dunbar//World Surf League
The 2025 WSL Final 5 brings a dynamic not seen in the modern era of the Championship Tour. The 10 remaining surfers – five men and five women – have sharply different levels of experience at the wave hosting this year’s finale.
For nearly two decades, Pipeline closed the season, followed by four years at Lower Trestles. Everyone’s track record at the title-deciding venues was fairly well-established. Fiji, however, disappeared from the tour from 2018 to 2023, leaving most of today’s finalists with only limited experience at Cloudbreak. Only a few have a deep competitive history in heats there.
Will that difference prove decisive when the title’s on the line next week? Let’s dig into the historical record.
The Men
1 – Yago Dora
2 – Jordy Smith
3 – Griffin Colapinto
4 – Jack Robinson
5 – Italo Ferreira
In 2024, Griffin Colapinto won his first-ever CT event at Cloudbreak. Jack Robinson placed 3rd his first time competing in Fiji. Last year, the lack of heats logged at the wave didn’t hinder their results. However, in 2025, both surfers, ranked third and fourth respectively, will have to go through Jordy Smith.
The 37-year-old South African is the elder statesman of the tour, having competed at Cloudbreak six times throughout his career. Smith’s 15.40 average heat total at the 2012 edition is higher than the single-event heat average of any of his adversaries who qualified for the final – Yago Dora, Colapinto, Robinson, and Italo Ferreira. And when you take his results across all six Fiji appearances, his 13.63 mean heat total still stands well above the averages of the rest of the field.
Does this track record give Smith an edge over the younger, spry surfers chasing him? Not necessarily.
Smith’s Cloudbreak performances are in decline. After his fifth place in 2013, he logged three 13th place finishes in a row in 2014, 2016, and 2017, before sliding to a career-worst 17th at the 2024 event. His 2024 average heat total of 11.07 was also his career low in Fiji.
Smith will have the advantage of having to surf fewer heats, but his performances have been trending in the wrong direction to pick him as a favorite.
Then there are the two Brazilian goofyfoots, Yago Dora and Italo Ferreira. Other than Smith, Ferreira has the second-most experience in Fiji with four appearances. But like Smith, he peaked years ago when he earned a fifth place in 2015. Since then, he has earned a 13th and two ninths.
The odds are on Dora’s side, given that he only has to win one heat to be crowned champ – a new wrinkle in the rules. Yago (along with Colapinto and Robinson) is trending in the right direction. He earned a 25th in his first event in Fiji in 2017, then came back strong with a 5th place last year.
The men’s bracket will be a battle of experience versus youth. We’ll see which prevails.
Picklum needs one heat win for her first world title. But a goofy-footer with plenty of championship experience at lefts is lurking. Photo: Matt Dunber//World Surf League
The Women
1 – Molly Picklum
2 – Gabriela Bryan
3 – Caity Simmers
4 – Caroline Marks
5 – Bettylou Sakura Johnson
Contrary to the men’s final, the women all come in with equal experience. The 2025 finals are representative of the youth movement seen in women’s surfing. Caroline Marks and Gabriela Bryan are the “elders” at 23 years of age.
None of the five women were around for the previous Cloudbreak CT era, so they’ve all only donned a jersey once in Fiji.
While the sample size is small, Molly Picklum has the edge compared to her peers. Among the five women, her third-place finish was the best in 2024. Her average heat total of 11.77 was also the best among the finalists. Only needing one win to claim her maiden title, the event is Picklum’s for the taking.
That said, Simmers and Marks both earned a fifth place in Fiji last year. And neither of them got to square off with Picklum to provide a comparison. Plus, Marks, the only goofy-footer in the final, has to feel good about her chances surfing the left-hand tubes at Cloudbreak.
The Hawaiians, Gabriela Bryan and Bettylou Sakura Johnson, come in as the underdogs since they both bowed out in the elimination round with equal ninth-place finishes last year. They’ll get a chance to show if the 2024 results were true to their form in Fiji, or an aberration that they can improve upon now with a year of experience under their belts.
