From his early round heats, victory at J'Bay this year appeared preordained for Filipe Toledo. Sporting a shock of platinum hair, Filipe was putting low percentage moves onto high rotation, the best example being his dual oops in his Round 4 heat.

And at the risk of being barked at by walruses, I'm gonna argue that wave is up there with Tom Carroll's Pipe snap for sheer bloodymindedness. Both were the product of a fresh, audacious reading of an old wave.

That's the first wave that'll be played in next year's highlight package, but there was plenty more from Fili, so much in fact that his filmer has packaged it up into an eleven-minute clip. Plenty of talk about the big fella and being blessed, but also some almighty surfing to go with it.