Just two events remain on the women’s Championship Tour schedule. The men have one more beyond that, but each begins its final stretch today at Hossegor, France’s acclaimed surfing community and the location that could very well determine each tour’s 2018 world champion.
The women’s title race has been officially whittled down to just two contenders — six-time world champ Stephanie Gilmore and zero-time world champ Lakey Peterson. Now in her 12th year on the dream tour, Gilmore appeared to be slowing down a bit a few years back. After winning six world titles in her first eight years, her very brief decline has turned out to be an anomaly and she seems poised to add number seven to her collection after coming up just one spot shy last season.
It isn’t all that surprising to see Peterson in a position to take her down. What is surprising is that she is the only one who’s managed to remain within any sort of reasonable striking distance all season long. Peterson, in her seventh year on the CT, has never finished higher than sixth. Yet here she is, far outpointing traditional threats like three-time champ Carissa Moore, two-time defending champ Tyler Wright and three-time runner up Sally Fitzgibbons. There was a time not so long ago where those three, along with Gilmore, comprised the clear cut top four in the industry.
That is obviously no longer the case. Peterson has two contest wins and two runner-up finishes this season, helping her maintain the second-place position by a very comfortable margin of almost 13,000 points over Tatiana Weston-Webb. But she’s going to need something very special to continue climbing upwards for the 2018 crown.
Gilmore’s lead currently stands at 6,915 points with these two contests remaining. A victory at either stop, France or Maui, clinches the title. She hasn’t yet finished worse than fifth in any event this season. If we act conservatively and say that she finishes fifth in these last two contests, then her point total will stay exactly where it is.
Peterson would need, at worst, a first and a third, or two seconds in order to overtake Gilmore under those circumstances. A first and a fifth would put the two into an exact tie and require a surf-off.
It’s a long shot, but Peterson finished second at this event last season and could at least keep the pressure on with a big result before heading into the Maui finale.
The qualification race is a bit more interesting. There’s an unusual situation at the moment with both Wright and Courtney Conlogue around the qualification bubble. Wright is in ninth place, but shut her season down after Uluwatu due to injury. Conlogue is in 13th, but missed four of the year’s first five events with an injury of her own.
The WSL historically provides one wild card slot for a tour regular who missed significant time and missed re-qualification due to injury. If both Wright and Conlogue finish outside the top 10, then one of them — likely Conlogue — could have to spend 2019 on the Qualifying Series to regain her regular CT status.
There is also a lot at stake for Silvana Lima, Malia Manuel, Keely Andrew and Sage Erickson. All four are outside the top 10, but also between spots four and 12 on the QS rankings, of which the top six earn their CT spots. Each has additional opportunities if they don’t fare well in France, but only one major QS event remains on the schedule. They are all battling with one another on each leaderboard for a precious few final spots, so it’s coming down to a zero-sum scenario for all in this position.
The world title picture is fairly simple, but the qualification puzzle is basically still in the box. A lot of additional QS competitors are still vying to come up and snag these sought after positions and the best way to avoid that would be to come up with a major result this week to start putting the pieces in place.
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David Simon can be reached at dsimon@thegardenisland.com.
