Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach: Day 2

Wild, entertaining day of upsets at janky, join-the-dots Winkipop with an almost incomprehensible judging pattern being the chief feature of the day.

It was new Head Judge Luli's first big test and by my reckoning he and his panel lost control of the numbers by gifting Tyler an 8 for a short two-turn closeout at Bells yesterday. They followed on this morning with the opening ride of the day, a single closeout hit from Sophie McCullough, getting a 6.

'They will pay single closeouts hits' was the clear message...except they didn't. They didn't pay turn quality, which became clear after Molly Picklum got low-balled in her loss to Sawyer Lindblad. At that point it seemed we had almost regressed back to distant Easter meets where bell-bottomed judges earned a free lunch counting turns to determine who won or lost. Who got the biggest wave looked like the winning formula until Ethan Ewing grovelled his way to a low-speed 6 and change on a scrappy insider to beat wildcard George Pittar. Even the normally unflappable Ronnie Blakey was forced to drily observe that “it was very hard to pick the numbers today”. Under these conditions, upsets occurred willy nilly.

On the back foot all contest - last in her Opening Round heat, just scraping through the Elimination Round - Pickles similarly had to scrap in her Round of 16 heat against Sawyer Lindblad. The Californian posted the first high score, then backed it up with an excellent score, leaving Pickles needing 9.60 with a minute remaining. A straight frontside air - no rotation, clean takeoff and landing - had her asking the question but it wasn't enough (WSL/Hughes)

Back to the high point of the day though.

The star performer on the women's side of the draw was easy to identify. Johanne Defay backed up her Portugal win with a dominant showing, throwing away 7's, mostly on the strength of end section hits. Steph Gilmore made an astute observation yesterday relating to surfers near the cut retreating back to defensive surfing. We've seen a lot of that as the cut looms: defensive, anxious surfing. Anxiety is the defining condition of our age and we're used to thinking that surfing is a relief from terrestrial concerns which plague us. Not so for the pro surfers of 2024. Even Caity Simmers referred to feeling less anxious in her second scrappy heat win over Izzy Nichols - who seemed positively paralysed with anxiety as the heat wound down.

It doesn't help Steve's assertion that she was "positively paralysed" but this layback jam by Izzy is too good to leave out (WSL/Sloane)

Fellow cut-line dweller Sammy Pupo admitted he hadn't been able to sleep at night, so riddled with worries and emotional pressure was he over his results. There's no doubt this business of the cut has deeply traumatised exponents of what used to be one of the most joyful and light-hearted professions one could imagine. Surf all day, party all night, and travel the world collecting memories and maybe a few less salubrious companions. Not anymore. Our athletes need coaches and psychologists to deal with the downwards forces set in motion by the WSL's direction of the sport.

Defay was in full attack mode, which Gilmore had identified as the antidote to this epidemic of anxiety sweeping through the ranks. Defay sent Sally Fitzgibbon packing, where she now sits well below the cut-line after four consecutive second last place finishes. Sally is one of the few immune to the anxiety, mostly due, I suspect, to the robust commercial arrangements she has built with non-endemic sponsors. Whitegoods, sheds, cars of many makes have all been enhanced by the Sally Fitz smile.

Johanne was in "full attack mode" and the dithering lips didn't stand a chance (WSL/Sloane)

Two Elimination Round heats and eight heats of the Round 16 for the women gave us an encompassing look at the field in scrappy but high performance surf for almost the first time this year. It's obvious there is both a performance gap on tour but more noticeably a style division. Tom Curren claimed “style is technique", and by that measure we have girls who surf with modern style and technique and those who...don't. Stinky, over-coached arms, funky stances, half turns, etc etc. There's a clear dichotomy and the current World Champ is on the wrong side of it. On the right side is Molly Picklum, Caity Simmers, wildcard Ellie Harrison, Isabella Nichols, Gabby Bryan, Bettylou Sakura Johnson.

You can name the rest. Or not, if you disagree.

Ellie Harrison staged the first of today's upsets, vanquishing two-time Bells winner Tyler Wright with a mature mix of style and aggression (WSL/Sloane)

If Curren's style is technique equation is correct then sooner or later judges will have to pay attention to that technique and the execution it enables. A few stinky, squatted half-turns and an enthusiastic closeout hit is paid far too often.

A lot of incredibly tight heats today in the womens Round of 16. Ellie Harrison's win over Tyler seemed clear enough but came down to less than a point. Brisa took out Lakey by 0.01 of a point, Tati over Luana by 0.30, Caity over Izzy Nichols by 0.17. That's toss of a coin stuff. Heartbreaking for Lakey and Izzy who now surf for their careers at Mainbreak.

Five heats of the Men's Round of 32 were completed in pretty crapulous but surfable Winki. Straightaway I thought Morgan Ciblic would be able to tap into muscle memory from shitty days at Merewether pool and onshore Angas. Jack's opening ride was generously scored, especially after Morgs started punching portholes into fluffy closeout sections. A huge layback hit from Jack was under-scored - remember the 6 from the first wave of the day? This was a three-turner for a 5.93 - but in the end there was an undeniable force to the Cibilic attack. Two lost years on the Changa will need to be redeemed this year by Morgs before major sponsors start tightening the taps, as they already have.

Over the top of Jack and into the Round of 16, Bells has been a great warm up for Morgan's upcoming Changa campaign (WSL/Hughes)

Ryan Callinan was the best performer of the day in my books. Somehow in onshore garbage he managed full bottom-to-top carve surfing with insane flair on the end section. Leo had a shocker against a rampaging Sammy Pupo who epitomised the Gilmore attacking philosophy, but it begged the question for coaches clipping tickets for 10%: What if the other guy just out-surfed you? How do you analyse and debrief that?

Behind Sammy's brick wall of poor results, insomnia, and mounting anxiety stands three Round of 16 losses, all of them by less than a point. Maybe coaches should be trained in Stoic philosophy to make sense of this poor fortune.

An inch shorter but half an inch wider. Sammy Pupo stepped down his board for this afternoon's wind-affected waves and with increased planing speed and reduced turning radius his surfing was eerily similar to a missing countryman - Filipe Toledo (WSL/Hughes)

Connor just got lost in the scrambled mess and tried, too late, to regain a rhythm he had surrendered to Matty McGillivray.

The final heat of the day was a cracker. Wildcard George Pittar forced Ethan Ewing into some early mistakes as he invited him into beachbreak looseness. Pittar had Ewing down needing a 6 and change with less than thirty seconds remaining, when Ewing scrapped into an insider. First watchings had me convinced Pittar had won but after rewatching the heat in its entirety I've changed my tune. I think judges got the result right. Ewing's turns were bigger, fully realised, and carved all the way back. Pittar relied too heavily on the end section hit.

George almost made it a clean sweep by the wildcards, but fell 0.20 points short of Ethan Ewing (WSL/Hughes)

Is Pittar CT material..? We just don't know and that is the major problem with the CS. We have no idea how surfers who blaze the CS will do once they hit the CT due to the vast difference in wave quality. They come from Riberia D'ilhas and Saquarema to Pipeline and Sunset beach.  Based on those CS results it’s not possible to determine if they will be competitive at CT level.

Based on form today you would back R'Cal to go one better this year with Sammy Pupo as his dance partner, while Defay rings the Bell on the women's side of the draw.

// STEVE SHEARER

Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Presented by Bonsoy Women’s Elimination Round Results:
HEAT 1: Sophie McCulloch (AUS) 13.17 DEF. Molly Picklum (AUS) 11.50, India Robinson (AUS) 4.67
HEAT 2: Caitlin Simmers (USA) 12.04 DEF. Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) 11.23, Alyssa Spencer (USA) 10.56

Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Presented by Bonsoy Women’s Round of 16 Results:
HEAT 1: Johanne Defay (FRA) 15.46 DEF. Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 13.17
HEAT 2: Ellie Harrison (AUS) 13.73 DEF. Tyler Wright (AUS) 12.74
HEAT 3: Sawyer Lindblad (USA) 15.67 DEF. Molly Picklum (AUS) 11.74
HEAT 4: Brisa Hennessy (CRC) 12.74 DEF. Lakey Peterson (USA) 12.73
HEAT 5: Caroline Marks (USA) 15.67 DEF. Sophie McCulloch (AUS) 12.10
HEAT 6: Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) 11.97 DEF. Luana Silva (BRA) 11.67
HEAT 7: Caitlin Simmers (USA) 13.10 DEF. Isabella Nichols (AUS) 12.93
HEAT 8: Gabriela Bryan (HAW) 13.83 DEF. Bettylou Sakura Johnson (HAW) 12.04

Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Presented by Bonsoy Men’s Round of 32 Results:
HEAT 1: Morgan Cibilic (AUS) 13.64 DEF. Jack Robinson (AUS) 12.93
HEAT 2: Ryan Callinan (AUS) 14.50 DEF. Imaikalani deVault (HAW) 7.13
HEAT 3: Samuel Pupo (BRA) 15.23 DEF. Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 9.70
HEAT 4: Matthew McGillivray (RSA) 10.66 DEF. Connor O'Leary (JPN) 9.34
HEAT 5: Ethan Ewing (AUS) 12.93 DEF. George Pittar (AUS) 12.73