Stephanie Gilmore’s World Surf League season is on skinny ice after simply the primary occasion of the 12 months after she crashed out of the Billabong Professional at Pipeline.
Gilmore was pitched into an elimination spherical after dropping her opening warmth and was knocked out in a shock consequence after failing to raised the scores of teenagers Caitlin Simmers and Alyssa Spencer — attempting to get busy however failing to make sure she was on high-scoring high quality waves.
It’s a large blow to the veteran, who will now need to elevate her sport within the subsequent 4 occasion simply to keep away from the mid-season reduce.
“I feel like I’ve gone from hero to zero but surfing has a great way of keeping you humble for sure.,” Gilmore mentioned.
“It’s a bummer way to start the year but that’s sport, that’s the way it is and there’s really no better motivation than to have a shocker and want to come back better.”
Gilmore, who turned 35 earlier this week, gained a document eighth world title final season regardless of lacking Pipeline after being compelled into quarantine as a result of Covid.
She was at risk of lacking the reduce earlier than a semi-final end in Portugal and a pair of quarter-final ends in Australia helped her claw throughout the road.
She ultimately completed the season in fifth place general and gained a mammoth 5 heats in a row on the WSL finals to safe her eighth title.
However she is aware of with the expertise on tour this 12 months she will be able to’t afford any extra lapses.
“I’m already two heats better than what I started last year, so it’s not too bad,” Gilmore mentioned of final 12 months’s Covid-enforced absence.
“But we have a group of young girls on tour this year and some of the rookies who were on tour last year that didn’t make the cut but they’re back with a vengeance and have got a lot more experience.
“So I think this year will be different.
“I’m not going to be able to scrape by like I did, I’m really going to have to knuckle down at Sunset and then go to Portugal — which is always a wildcard for me.
“Then I feel really comfortable at Bells and Margaret River but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
“But I’ll do my best.”
FITZGIBBONS CALL OUT SURFING’S HIDDEN STIGMA
Sally Fitzgibbons’ immersion in Hawaii’s north shore surf tradition forward of the World Surf League season means she’ll don’t have any hesitation in donning a helmet at Pipeline subsequent week.
The window for the primary occasion on the WSL championship tour opens on Monday (Australian time), with Fitzgibbons set to “buckle up” as the ladies tackle the heavy Pipeline swell for simply the second 12 months in competitors.
A number of athletes on the ladies’s tour will don helmets, one thing Fitzgibbons mentioned was broadly accepted in Hawaii from the grassroots to the elite degree of the game — amongst girls and boys, women and men.
However the 32-year-old, a three-time runner-up on the world tour, was puzzled as to why there was nonetheless a stigma round sporting headgear, particularly in Australia.
“It’s actually not as supported really wearing helmets back in Oz, I feel like there’s still a bit of that reluctant cool factor,” Fitzgibbons mentioned.
“But over here (in Hawaii) in particular, all the layers from the young kids to the women to even the top, top guys and the Jamie O’Briens (Pipeline masters winner and surfing legend) of the world, it’s really supported.
“The Backdoor Shootout was on the other day and some of the iron men, the ones that are indestructible, there were three of them one after the other off to the hospital.”
Hawaiian surfer Kala Grace worn out in a closeout in what was described as “double overhead” situations, misplaced his helmet and was pushed into the reef and knocked unconscious earlier than being dropped at the floor in a dramatic rescue.
It comes seven years after Aussie surfer Owen Wright suffered a mind harm following a wipeout at Pipeline that compelled him off tour for over a 12 months.
“There’s been so many more (head injuries) since (Wright) too,” Fitzgibbons mentioned.
“I’ve still got my helmet from Fiji back in the day, so I just clip it up and let’s go.”
The beginning of the 2023 season marks simply the second time the WSL girls’s tour has had a full occasion at Pipeline, a transfer Fitzgibbons mentioned was a “significant step” for the game.
“Something like Pipeline, they say, (the women) have had it on the schedule now for two, two years,” she mentioned.
“Well, this wave takes a lifetime. It takes a lifetime of dedication and even then you don’t get to keep anything. You have to paddle back out and experience the exact same amount of fears, so in a way, it’s sort of levelled rivalries and who you’re competing against.
“Any of that just gets put aside because it’s you and the ocean first and foremost and it is a bit of a survival of the fittest out there.”
Regardless of that, Fitzgibbons, who takes her place on this 12 months’s tour courtesy of a wildcard after being a sufferer of the controversial mid-season reduce final 12 months, is grateful to be difficult herself and studying one thing new at this stage of her profession.
“I think it definitely is the fountain of youth,” she mentioned.
“I paddle out and when that time comes in the heat and that big set’s rolling your way, you just think it’s keeping me young, it’s keeping me young and just put your head down and go.”
Initially revealed as World Surf League 2023: Stephanie Gilmore knocked out of Billabong Pro at Pipeline
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