Brazilian Filipe Toledo earned the Surf Ranch Pro win on Sunday at the man-made wave pool in central California, beating out a crop of the world’s best and putting the San Clemente transplant in a strong position to make a championship finals event slated for September at Lower Trestles.
Two Orange County surfers, Huntington Beach’s Kanoa Igarashi and San Clemente’s Griffin Colapinto, had a stellar finish in the top five at the Lemoore event.
Toledo earned his win over fellow Brazilian Gabriel Medina in the finals, where they’ve met before at the past Surf Ranch events. Toledo this time got the best of his rival after posting a 9.67 (out of 10), with a second score of 8.27.
“This is my third (championship tour) final at the Surf Ranch, and the last two times Gabriel beat me,” said Toledo in an World Surf League announcement. “It feels really good to take the win this time. Gabriel has been putting on a show the entire year, and is already in the WSL Final 5 at Trestles, so winning against him means a lot to me.”
Igarashi, a two-time US Open of Surfing winner who will compete at the upcoming Olympics for Japan, made it to the semifinals and earned an equal fifth place, which moves him up three places to sixth on the WSL leaderboard.
Colapinto had the fourth-highest total score at the event. The valuable points earned from the Surf Ranch Pro landed him on the top 5 leaderboard for the upcoming new finals format to happen at his home break at the cobblestone San Onofre State Beach just south of San Clemente.
Colapinto will have to maintain enough points at upcoming WSL World Tour events to stay on the Final 5 list rest of the season. World Surf League contests are now on a break until August with the Olympics approaching late July.
On the women’s side, it was Johanne Defay, who will be competing for France in the upcoming Olympics, who took the win. USA Surfing Olympian and four-time world champ Carissa Moore earned second spot.
“Johanne was so ready to win,” said Moore in an announcement. “She is truly the queen of the pool, always knowing what to do. She has very good timing, and it was really good to see her winning today.”
Based on her overall points so far this season, Moore remains No. 1 in the rankings and has already officially earned her spot at the Rip Curl WSL Finals in September.
“It feels great,” said Moore. “It was a big goal for me at the start of the year to make it to the Top 5, to compete in the Rip Curl WSL Finals, so I’m really excited about it. It feels great to know I qualified, but there is still a lot of work to be done if I want to be the world champion.”
The next stop on the 2021 CT is the Corona Open Mexico, with a waiting period from Aug. 10 to 20.
Source: Orange County Register
Be First to Comment