Tahiti Pro 2024: Day Two

Days like these at pumping Teahupoo are the most enjoyable to watch, but the hardest to write about. The hype and the superlatives can't do it justice and all you can really do is sketch a rough outline of the day's events.

To wit: Vahine Fierro offered a reckless, brazen, and diamond-brilliant performance over three heats in 6 to 10 foot full pumping Teahupoo to highlight another transcendent day of women's competitive surfing.

She missed the CT by one heat in 2021, and came third here at Teahupoo as a wildcard in 2022 and 2023, but none of that mattered today (WSL/Dunbar)

She was good in her Quarter-Final win over Molly Picklum, and great in her Final win over Brisa Hennesy, but on a completely different level in her Semi-Final win over Tatiana Weston-Webb. Once a blue moon, surfing does take on the dimensions of a combat sport, in terms of what must be endured and the courage required to face it.

Vahine started the Semi getting caught inside by a monster set, which grabbed her by the feet, dragged her backwards over the falls and over the reef, where she was pounded by huge sets in the worst possible position before getting a ride through the lagoon from the water patrol. A single event of this magnitude would drain the tank of most surfers. Vahine took three more trips through the lagoon after pounding wipeouts. At times it seemed this recklessness would be her undoing. After one such misadventure she left Tati in the lineup alone with priority. Both the best and worst place to be as a professional surfer when you paddle over a lump and the horizon turns blue-black. That presents what old school big waver Owl Chapman would call “the naked moment”.  There wasn't a moment's hesitation from Tati as she whipped it and put her head down, but for a micro-second her nose caught the square of the wave and it looked like a punishing wipeout was imminent. Not so. She got a pump in as what Coach Doug Silva termed a “unicorn wave" elbowed out and throttled her deep across the reef before a triumphant exit.

She needed a 10 to take the lead, and judges duly awarded the 10, unanimously. The best wave a woman has ever surfed in a jersey..? No other candidates come immediately to mind. Pickles 10 at Pipe was the closest thing we've got and this definitely shaded it.

Tatiana called the ride a “gift from God” and thanked his only son Jesus for “giving me the opportunity to be who I am and do what I do”.

I'm so habituated to the religious underpinnings of elite pro surfing that the talk no longer jars.

A heady mix of joy, fear, and discombobulation followed Tati's perfect 10-point wave. Despite riding the best wave of her life, she still lost the heat (WSL/Sloane)

Vahine was more earthly and localised with her gratitude after a heat-winning wave materialised for her with 90 seconds on the clock. A set she effortlessly knifed into for a deep tube and 9-point ride.

She gave thanks to Teahupoo itself for sending the wave. After comfortably winning the Final with a healthy margin against Brisa she added Jessy Miley-Dyer for sending the women out there, confirming with words what we had just seen in live action. “We were more than capable,” she said. “We're gonna show up, we're gonna throw ourselves over the ledge”.

At times the Tahitian looked like Gabe Medina pumping and shimmying over foamballs, at times a female Lopez with casual drops and stylish bottom turns to late pull ins.

The grace and style was offset in the channel by coach Flores who informed us his primary role was to replace the smiling Vahine with “Miss Angry” and that she must fight, fight to the end. “Otherwise you lose and you're not supposed to do this job."

The most improved female surfers at Teahupoo this season? Tyler Wright and Brisa Hennesey. Tyler packed bombs, including an absolute nugget that went nuclear on the inside ledge, with the two-time champ locked inside it. No exit, but if she did she would have got the score to advance over Tati in their Quarter.

Eyes focussed down the line, Tyler nimbly switches rails in dangerous territory - the rising shockwave in the second shot attests to the outcome (WSL/Sloane)

Brisa found a formula, in the much the same way a younger Gabe Medina found a formula with deep south runners and tech tube-riding in his early showings. Sitting deep on the reef on a precise takeoff spot identified by local fixer Tereva David, Brisa caught south runners with an elbow on them. A no-hands takeoff and pump then a grab rail through the round tube. Multiple successful makes from Brisa got her into the Final. She wasn't quite there for the bombs Vahine or Tati got, exclaiming she was “absolutely terrified” and on the “edge of so much anxiety,” but also that “on the other side of that edge is the ride of your life”.

For someone who looked nowhere near competent in previous Teahupoo showings, or at Pipe, it was a stunning advancement in skills, positioning, and composure.

It stands in stark contrast to world number 3 and Pipe Runner-Up Molly Picklum, who came into the event with massive expectations yet failed to deliver a single satisfactory ride. Pickles rode twelve waves in three showings for a high score of 4.33 and an average wave score of 1.58. Something went drastically, catastrophically awry with the Pickles Teahupoo campaign this season. Out of position, nervy wave choice, failed takeoffs was the external result. Nothing about it was right. Still, thanks to the vagaries of a tiny field she leaves with a Quarter-Final finish.

Tiny scores and a Quarter-Final finish. High scores and a last place finish. If we were to contrast Molly with, say, Jack Robinson - who's also number 3 in the world - that's what we would observe. Jack was brilliant against Yago Dora - flawless really. Deft execution in the squarest and heaviest pits of the heat, adding little flourishes of drama here and there on the tube exit to excite the judges. A bent neck, low fade out of the barrel to demonstrate complete calm in the jaws of the wave, a little raised hand salute in a tube highline to add a degree of difficulty to what he made look incredibly easy. There was nothing about Jack's performance that didn't scream defending champ. Yet he lost.

Judges paid Dora's slightly deeper, longer but softer and sweeter south-angled runners. It was a matter of pure preference. Robinson offered up waygu steak, they preferred Dora's fragola gelato. I preferred the steak myself. Either way, it was a brilliant tube shoot out. There has to be a better format though for pumping surf than to have defending champs get last place with such brilliant performances.

Jack was heavy on the anchors, often exiting with his boardshorts pulled to the bikini line (WSL/Dunbar)

That holds doubly true for pre-event stand-out Liam O'Brien. If he was guilty of anything in his Elimination Round heat with Ramzi Boukhiam, it was surfing too good and making it look too easy.

Six rides for LOB, only one non-make. Three excellent rides and a high 7. Unbelievably competent backside tube-weaving through deep caverns, and still he got beat. Only a dramatic near-miss from Ramzi where he tippy toed into a huge square bowl and almost over-balanced as he fought to regain his line through the tube supplied a meaningful difference, with the 9.13 the heat-winning wave. Both of LOB's last minute rides looked sufficient to reel in the subsequent deficit, both were judged unworthy of the heat win. Such is life.

Waves of a lifetime continued through the afternoon. Cole Houshmand came in from very, very deep to traverse the narrowest possible margin over a foamball for a 9.57 in which he claimed to have “channeled my inner Slater and went as high as I could” to make the wave.

Cole frozen in an ice cave - an image he'll be replaying over and over (WSL/Sloane)

Rio Waida said when he was in the tube, looking out at rainbows, mountains, and adoring faces in the channel he felt “like I'm in heaven”.

Crosby Colapinto got the wave of a lifetime in his heat against Seth, an experience so intense, “I blacked out on it,” he said.

With Matt McGillivray wandering the lagoon, Barron went on a one-man blitzkrieg, packing multiple big barrels with courage and pizazz (WSL/Dunbar, Sloane)

Vahine can't make the tour. Ramzi took ten years. A super abundance of talent has been wiped out of the contest at a too early stage. These are challenges for the WSL to overcome as far as it's qualifying process goes (we need some hollow waves!) and the format for pumping surf – especially during this back half of the year.

Nothing of today will be remembered though, with tomorrow promising another epic day. Good surf cures all, obscures all.

If we run through to a winner, that guy will have to surf four times in pumping surf. That will be an achievement requiring careful energy management. The lesson of 2014, where a fatigued Kelly Slater fell to a fresher Gabe Medina should be front and centre in all surfers and coaches minds.

Seeya bright and early tomoz.

// STEVE SHEARER

SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro Presented by Outerknown Women’s Final Results:
1 - Vahine Fierro (FRA) 15.17
2 - Brisa Hennessy (CRC) 12.00

SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro Presented by Outerknown Women’s Semifinal Results:
HEAT 1: Brisa Hennessy (CRC) 13.57 DEF. Caroline Marks (USA) 3.67
HEAT 2: Vahine Fierro (FRA) 17.70 DEF. Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) 16.07

SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro Presented by Outerknown Women’s Quarterfinal Results:
HEAT 1: Brisa Hennessy (CRC) 12.66 DEF. Carissa Moore (HAW) 9.44
HEAT 2: Caroline Marks (USA) 8.16 DEF. Sawyer Lindblad (USA) 2.73
HEAT 3: Vahine Fierro (FRA) 15.13 DEF. Molly Picklum (AUS) 3.17
HEAT 4: Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) 14.83 DEF. Tyler Wright (AUS) 13.76

SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro Presented by Outerknown Men’s Elimination Round Results:
HEAT 1: Mihimana Braye (PYF) 15.10 DEF. Griffin Colapinto (USA) 14.57
HEAT 2: Cole Houshmand (USA) 17.24 DEF. Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 13.50
HEAT 3: Yago Dora (BRA) 16.57 DEF. Jack Robinson (AUS) 15.90
HEAT 4: Ramzi Boukhiam (MAR) 16.86 DEF. Liam O'Brien (AUS) 16.74
HEAT 5: Jake Marshall (USA) 13.57 DEF. Connor O'Leary (JPN) 13.50
HEAT 6: Rio Waida (INA) 14.04 DEF. Imaikalani deVault (HAW) 3.33
HEAT 7: Barron Mamiya (HAW) 16.83 DEF. Matthew McGillivray (RSA) 10.57
HEAT 8: Crosby Colapinto (USA) 17.43 DEF. Seth Moniz (HAW) 15.33