The Roxy Pro France had all the makings of a defining event for Lakey Peterson, who entered the contest in second place for the season and chasing after six-time world champ Stephanie Gilmore. Gilmore had an opportunity to clinch the title with a victory, but most scenarios would push the race to Maui at season’s end.
When Gilmore was edged out by Courtney Conlogue and Malia Manuel in the trio’s third-round heat, it delivered Peterson an opportunity to make a huge dent in her points deficit. Gilmore’s season total would be staying exactly where it was. A chance to severely narrow the gap going into the final event was very realistic.
That optimism quickly turned to disappointment as Peterson endured the same fate in the very next heat. Going against Coco Ho and Bronte Macaulay, Peterson was off to a solid start. But she saw her advantage begin to dwindle late as Macaulay’s activity bumped the title hopeful down into third place. Peterson would not recover into an advancing position and saw her contest end in disappointing fashion.
Often times a title race doesn’t seem to be decided by one singular moment, but by the accumulation of smaller moments throughout the season. France was by no means the deciding factor in the 2018 title race, but those back-to-back heats now certainly feel like they comprised the defining hour of the year.
So going to Maui, the scenarios are now fairly simple. If Gilmore reaches the semifinal round, she clinches her seventh career world championship. If Gilmore fails to reach the semis, Peterson must win the event to then force a surf-off between the two competitors.
Other results would have been in play if Peterson had managed a deep run in France. But she must now win the contest, hope for some help along the way and then out-duel Gilmore one-on-one to claim what would be her first career world title.
It’s a lot to ask, but not out of the realm of possibility. Gilmore reaching the semifinals is by no means a given, so Peterson should really just focus on her own surfing because without a victory, nothing else matters.
Conlogue went on to win the Roxy Pro, notching her second victory in the last three contests and jumping all the way to eighth for the season. She’s managed to do that after picking up no more than the minimum number of points through the first six events of the year. But her form has obviously returned after coming back from injury and she battled past Carissa Moore in a fantastic semifinal before finishing the job against upstart Macy Callaghan for the victory.
The women have some time to ponder the possibilities now, as the Beachwaver Maui Pro doesn’t get going until Nov. 25. There are a lot of qualification questions still to be answered. Some of those will be sorted by the Qualifying Series, but some will certainly play out in Hawaii with the wahine batting for their spot on next season’s world tour.
The drama could have been far greater, but the scenarios were made much clearer. Lakey Peterson needs to win. She has a lot of time to dwell on that, as well as on what maybe could have been.
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David Simon can be reached at dsimon@thegardenisland.com.
