"The female version of Medina is born."
Canadian surf prodigy Erin Brooks has closed off a dominant Aussie leg of the Challenger Series in Sydney with a second-place finish, a big rankings lead and a declaration she’ll be spearheading generational on the women’s Championship Tour.
After winning the first CS event of the season and stunning the world with best barrel ever by a woman, Brooks slaughtered the field in the GWM Sydney Surf Pro with her signature combination of quick snaps, solid airs and big Bible camp energy.
Every post-heat interview began with her high-pitched thanks to the Almighty for letting her wreak mayhem in her heat.
Ronnie Blakey went straight for the jugular in her podium interview, asking Erin Brooks whether she would compete on the CT next year if she wins a spot.
She grinned with all 28 perfect teeth and said she would “definitely take up the opportunity”.
As one viewer put it in the comments framing vision of her near-540, “The female version of Medina is born.”
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Dear reader,
Erin Brooks needs only one more decent result out of four remaining events to lock her place on the 2025 CT.
Barring injury, it’s a given.
When it does happen, we can look forward to the great rivalry between Brooks and Oceanside’s Caitlin Simmers, one that will come with a stark contrast between Caity’s awkward yet iconic stonerish murmurings and Erin’s even more awkward enthusiastic Christian youth group-themed gushings.
The interviewers had their angles on Erin Brooks locked in from the word go, knowing exactly what line of questioning would get her to drop squeaky gems of innocence.
Stace Galbraith put on a masterclass at Snapper, asking Brooks about her love of the Aussie arcade chain Timezone and, when she won, prompting her to spill the beans on her dad’s plan to “take me and my friends out for pizza!!!”
As for her surfing, the highlight in Sydney was Brooks’ near 540 in the semifinals, surely one of the better airs landed by a lady in competition.
She couldn’t recapture the magic during the final, but she succeeded in freaking out her opponent by boosting on section after section at the close of the heat, knowing a single completion could steal the win in the dying seconds.
And who was that opponent, the one who took out the event? Brooks’ bff/’big sister’/roommate Isabella Nicholls (who, Brooks says, absolutely rules the Timezone Pop-A-Shot nets).
Nicholls managed to win the final with good wave selection and solid backhand hacks, making up for her meh performance against Sally Fitz in the semis. Nicholls victory puts her in second place on the CS rankings and on course to requalify for the 2025 CT season.
Meanwhile, local surfer Jordy Lawler and Brazilian vet Alejo Muniz revived their broken CT dreams with their best ever results on the CS. Jordy Lawler said he was on the point of giving up the chase for qualification after missing out on a fulltime place on the CS this year.
Thanks to a wildcard entry into the event at his local break of North Narrabeen, Lawler was able to dominate and win with his tweaked-out airs and smooth hacks. The North Narrabeen Boardriders roared their approval as their latest favourite son pulled out big scores at the buzzer time and time again. Lawler is now all but guaranteed wildcard places in the remaining CS events, giving him a solid chance at qualifying for the CT for the first time at the harvest years age of 29.
A casual fan might be tempted to gossip that the WSL had given the judges a memo to favour the local guys, what with Mikey McDonagh tearfully taking out the Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro Snapper earlier this month. Of course, if you actually watched either event you’d have seen that neither of them needed any help from crooked judges: they smashed it out of the park on their own merits, albeit buoyed by local support and knowledge of their home breaks.
Alejo Muniz similarly missed out on qualifying for the CS via the usual pathway of the regional QS, but received a wildcard from the WSL that got him back in with a chance. Muniz’s backhand power surfing took out CS standout Sammy Pupo in the quarters and elder brother Miggy Pupo in the Semis. Muniz kept close in the final and was well deserving of the second-place finish.
The Challenger Series is on a break now until the Ballito Pro in early July, but what a start it’s been. If you’ve been suffering your way through the start of the CT season, watching the boring Days 1 and 2 (where they take 24 heats to knock out just 6 surfers), enduring the crap conditions they’ve been making the surfers compete it (especially the poor women), maybe give the CS a look next time it’s on. The waves generally aren’t any worse, every heat matters, the talent pool is deep and there’s real excitement to be found in watching people grab hold of the dream of CT qualification.
Did you watch the Sydney Surf Pro?
Did you rue the lack of a BG comments board on which to lavish your observations/shitposts?
Did you not watch but have opinions anyway?
Are you saying more average to good competitors filling up the numbers is in some way a good thing and not to mention dilution of the prize pool ?
I like it!
I’m waiting for the young Christian surfers to wonder what they did wrong to make god decide to have them lose a heat.
I think on reflection the change was instigated by who ever brought the cut to the table , it was really one of the only ways to outfox or negate the negative aspects of the major sponsors legacy branding of the athletes.
Take away from the OZ leg , surfers no longer rip shred carve nor thread , its all straight up ” technical ” , how very olympic.
*** footnote Willcox’s results on the OZ leg must surely raise questions about his future assperations of being a regular CT level athelete , currently i see the cut as working as it is clearing out deadwood on both the mens and womans list ( this must be really fucking with the performance clauses on some of the older copy and paste contracts and bet some serious legal work is going down in the background getting this sorted out).
Willcox is hardly dead wood! Travesty the guy is not going to get a chance to show his skills at Cloudie and Chopes. 🙁
Agree but as he approaches 30 he needs more than just being able to handle heavy tubes , this is simply the fact of modern proffesional surfing and I respectfully suggest it will never return to the days of heaving Hawaii to make or break a proffesional career , it’s just the facts.
Totally. The odds of Simmers and Brooks having a proper organic rivalry and that defining women’s surfing are not that high.
I more meant that, in part because of their marketability, they will be hyped hard as rivals (which of course I totally participated in above) and that narrative of rivalry will be helped along by the comic difference in their approaches to public speaking and life in general. bongs vs bibles, here we go
Thank you!
Coco Ho overcorrector
Erin, like Tatiana, has lived in Hawaii her whole surfing life.
Nobody wants to admit they’re from Hawaii any more? Has it come to this?
men make things reductive. it’s just how things work.
#misogyny
Poe’s Law, illustrated.
its really good to see all these new names going nuts, they needed that
With the best waves, yes. Throw in the Tahiti trials too. Why not?
Top notch reporting!
It might end up being god’s fault if she twists an ankle and or knee or both too early on,,
Are these CS events supposed to be good prep for the big leagues? No wonder the rookies get smashed on tour most of the time and the Jaddies of the world keep popping back up. How can anyone think they are on the path to compete against JJF in pumping pipe, chopes, or Main Break by winning at a waist high shorey by doing one turn for a score? Pro surfing is so stupid. Burn it down and restart. Please.
Didn’t watch any of Sydney contest did you.
I did watch some finals day and it was real lame. It was a low point in my life. My wife ask numerous times why I was watching that silliness. There was no excuse. I’m just stupid.
Snapper though, that was impressive. Some of the best competition surfing I’ve seen.
For sure, but still in waves kooks can surf.
Fair. It sort of works in reverse too. When Owen got cut, he knew there was no way he could get back, with the CS spots on offer.
The platitude “best barrel ever by a woman” just got destroyed by Caitlin Simmers latest edit.
And my guess it is on Ilha do Fogo, just south of Sao Felipe.
Fuck yeah!
If the WSL gifted me with two reverse wildcards which I could give to two surfers for the remainder of there lives I would choose Alejo Muniz and Frederico Morais.
If one of them was to get injured and no longer be able to not surf, then perhaps Michael Rodrigues?
I hadn’t seen a surfer being pushed so hard since Ethan Ewing at Bells in 2023. Dude got a 9.something for an incomplete air in the semis.
I don’t know why, but there are few things in the world that bug me more than “lil”.
you seem a lil sensitive to such an innocuous lil word, man!
Air’n into the History Brooks!