THE 2018 World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour (CT) season has finally come to a close, with Stephanie Gilmore (Australia) earning her record-equalling seventh world title and Gabriel Medina (Brazil) winning his second world title.
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Attentions now turn to the 2019 Championship Tour, which will challenge the world's best surfers – including a new crop of rookies who are officially solidified for next year.
Included in this crop of surfers are Culburra Beach siblings Owen, Tyler and Mikey Wright, as well as Gerroa’s Sally Fitzgibbons.
The 2019 men’s Championship Tour class will be contested by the WSL Top 34, made up of the top 22 finishers on the 2018 CT Jeep Leaderboard, the top six finishers on the 2017 Qualifying Series (QS), and two WSL wildcards.
Joining his brother Owen in the top 22 for the first time will be Culburra Beach Boardrider’s Mikey Wright – who is one of five rookies on the tour next year, being joined by Soli Bailey, Peterson Crisanto, Seth Moniz and Deivid Silva.
Joining the Wright brothers in the top 22 are Brazil’s Gabriel Medina, Filipe Toledo, Italo Ferreira, Willian Cardoso, Michael Rodrigues, Adriano de Souza and Yago Dora, South Africa’s Jordy Smith, Australia’s Julian Wilson, Wade Carmichael and Adrian Buchan, United States’ Conner Coffin, Kolohe Andino and Griffen Colapinto, Hawaii’s Sebastian Zietz and Ezekiel Lau, France’s Jeremy Flores and Joan Duru, Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi and French Polynesia’s Michel Bourez.
These 22 will be joined by the top 10 from this year’s QS series, which are Hawaii’s Seth Moniz, Brazil’s Peterson Crisanto, Jesse Mendes, Deivid Silva and Jadson Andre, New Zealand’s Ricardo Christie, Italy’s Leonardo Fioravanti and Australia’s Ryan Callinan, Soli Bailey and Jack Freestone .
Finally, the two WSL wildcard spots were handed to two former world champions, US’ Kelly Slater and Hawaii’s John John Florence – with the replacement surfers being Caio Ibelli (Brazil), Frederico Morais (Portugal) and Ethan Ewing (Australia).
“It’s always a challenge when we have a large number of applicants for a limited number of wildcard positions,” WSL commissioner Kieren Perrow said.
“We truly appreciate and understand the value of being on tour and take this process very seriously.
“As it has for years, this process includes an independent medical review board, which assesses the applicants based on severity of injury and the impact it has on the surfer’s ability to compete at the Championship Tour level.
“In the case of 2018, all three applicants were deemed to have severe injuries that prevented them from competing in multiple events.
“From there, we apply our technical criteria and career achievement factors – which include world titles, career results, prior year ranking, and ranking at time of injury.
“While all three have strong cases, we have determined that Kelly Slater and John John Florence will receive the WSL wildcards for 2019 and Caio Ibelli will be the first replacement for the tour – not something we guarantee to a third applicant most seasons but is deserving in this case.”
While, the 2019 elite women’s CT class will be contested by the WSL top 17, made up of the top 10 finishers on the 2018 CT Jeep Leaderboard, the top six finishers on the 2018 Qualifying Series (QS) and one WSL wildcard.
Joining Fitzgibbons in the 2018 top 10 were Australia’s Stephanie Gilmore and Nikki Van Dijk, United States’ Lakey Peterson, Caroline Marks and Courtney Conlogue, Hawaii’s Carissa Moore and Malia Manuel, France’s Johanne Defay and Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb.
Culburra Beach’s two-time world champion Tyler Wright has been given the wildcard spot, after an interrupted 2018 season due to an ongoing battle with an illness, while the top six qualifiers from the QS are Australia’s Bronte Macauley and Macy Callaghan, Hawaii’s Coco Ho, Brazil’s Silvna Lima, New Zealand’s Paige Hareb and Costa Rica’s Brisa Hennessy.
The two CT replacement surfers to 2019 are Keely Andrew (Australia) and Sage Erickson (United States).
The 2019 WSL CT will be the primary Tokyo 2020 Olympics qualification avenue for the world's best surfers.
The world rankings at the end of the 2019 CT season will determine 18 of the 40 places at the Olympic Games (10 men and eight women).
The remaining 22 places will be determined at the 2019 and 2020 ISA World Surfing Games, the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, and a single slot (each for men and women) for the host nation, Japan.
Of these 18 places determined by the WSL, there is a maximum of two men and two women for each country.
The 2019 Championship Tour starts in April, at the the Gold Coast, and runs until December – where the season will finish in Hawaii.