First all-Aussie final since Barton Lynch and Damien Hardman in 1993!
In deteriorating three-foot waves at Bells’ better neighbour Winkipop, North Stradbroke Island surfer Ethan Ewing has won the Rip Curl Bells Pro on its sixtieth anniversary.
Ewing’s painterly frontside turns carved a swathe through his side of the draw. The twenty five year old destroyed Owen Wright’s fairytale farewell in round one, dominated two-time world champ Gabriel Medina, enjoyed a little of the judge’s wind behind his back in his semi with current champ Filipe Toledo, and was untroubled in the final as he easily dispatched Newcastle’s Ryan Callinan.
Brazilian surf fans, as well as the reigning world champ Filipe Toledo, were made apoplectic after Ewing and another Australian Jackson Baker appeared to be generously overscored in their heats against the small-wave wizard.
Still, a fine win for Ewing, whose late mama Helen Lambert, won the event in 1983.
“There’ll be a parade in the main street of Stradbroke Island tonight,” said commenter and ’78 world champ Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew.
“This is the one I’ve wanted to win…I’ve been thinking of this since I’ve been on the tour,” said Ewing.
JP Currie’s contest analysis to follow.
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
According to which criteria? Let’s remember WSL own criteria, which by the way, isn’t put on the screen anymore….
Commitment and degree of difficulty, innovative and progressive maneuvers, combination of major maneuvers, variety of maneuvers and speed, power and flow.
Wasn’t a 9, wasn’t a. 8,43, but hey, what matters is the drama, you can’t script this, riiight? Who would had imagined Ethan winning on the anniversary of the competition, 40 years after his mother did the same, almost a coincidence 😉👍
pure comedy art.
Don’t forget the words My Wife in every interview. We get it Tyler
You never heard Kelly?
DR has them writing chops on display
Toledo 2024: Keep Trying.
The most exciting part of Finals day was Pip raging/crying only to get the score in the end
Flippy got royally ripped off by a biased judging panel. No hamsammish for you Flippy.
Why does every event look like a Central California beach break in spring?
Ziff pissed off the waves gods.
Pretty cool that his mum won it too
God I love Jackson Baker!
Me too, but that 9 against Pip was possibly the most overscored wave in the history of pro surfing … and then they overscored Pip’s last wave to make up for it. But whatever, waves sucked, total crapshoot etc
Regardless of whether Baker’s wave was over scored, Toledo did not see the ride but had a hissy fit anyway at the thought that Baker could score a 9 in a moment of condescending arrogance. WSL any way you look at it is a friggin Clown Show.
He had seen the wave, that’s way he was as surprised and the 99% of the non Australian public.
Some of the scoring was a bit erratic maybe but I reckon they got the results right. Toledo was looking a tad lethargic by his standards. It’ll be interesting if him and EE match up again at Trestles in what will probably be similar-ish conditions.
Cheeky bitch!
Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number
Then there’s this Welsh Rarebit wearing some brown underpants
had to read currie to get you. too funny!
Ethan v Pip… From Ethan I saw some really innovative refreshing Surfing and from Pip I saw the same old. You do the same old. Its gotta be bigger, better than the last time.
Thought they overscored Ethan’s last wave a tad, but it was still enough to win.
Innovative from Ethan? Which part? The getting caught up in the lip on the closeout turn or surfing like Adam Melling from 12 years ago cosplaying to look like a character from The Simpsons? Congrats to him, though, I guess for getting to operate being held to a general standard rather than a personal one.
I like the first part. I don’t understand, “Congrats to him, though, I guess for getting to operate being held to a general standard rather than a personal one.”
Ethan isn’t judged against himself, whereas Fil is held to his own standard of good surfing, rather than a general standard of good surfing.
Bingo.
Thanks.
It’s only JJF and Ethan on tour who are adding flair to “standard” turns.
lol
Always….
Did we get another cease and desist from Tyler? Thinking that’s the reasoning behind no ‘yeay Tyler went back to back etc’. It’s certainly not through a lack of inclusivity from BG…
To make it even worse for the Brazilians, Derek stripped Gabby out of one of his world titles.
Sloppy.
😂😂😂😂
… where there is smoke fire is the likely cause… judges on their own planet
I absolutely Love Ethan Ewing and cant stand Toledo, however in this case Pip got ripped off.
I’m coompletely OK with that though, Ewing deserved it, so perhaps thats a new criteria we didnt know about, ” who deserves it” ?
I love a Cinderella story and its a payback for all the Zilla over scores the past two years.
I think the new judging criteria includes keeping the esky’s too close to the judges tower.
A bigger shitfest than manly and Bondi pre 1990