Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Canadian teenage surfing phenomenon Erin Brooks claimed her third successive world championship tour event with a win at the Trestles Pro, before Brazil’s Miguel Pupo took out Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi for his second win of the year.
Identified early as a potential world champion, the 19-year-old Brooks struggled in the first six events of her sophomore season, failing to make it out of the second round.
But a spectacular performance helped her claim a win in the heaving barrels of Tahiti, and she backed it up at another powerful South Pacific reef break to triumph at the Fiji Pro just a couple of weeks later.
Lower Trestles, the surfing venue for the 2028 LA Olympics, is a very different kind of wave but one of the best in the sport’s commercial homeland of Southern California and the cobblestone peak delivered high-performance, head-high waves for the finals.
After taking out five-time world champion Carissa Moore in their quarter-final and Australia’s reigning world champion Molly Picklum in the semi-final, Brooks got off to a strong start in the final against world No.1 Gabriela Bryan on Friday (Saturday AEST), scoring 7.0 out of 10 for a series of sharp, accurate turns on her backhand.
Bryan kept herself in the contest with a 6.33 with some trademark powerful gouges on her forehand and backed it up with a 5.57 for a 11.90 total.
But Brooks looked in control throughout, holding the lead after a second mid-range score and sealing the deal with another well-surfed right-hander as the clock wound down for a 6.0 and a 13-point total.
“The first part of the year was such a bummer, but this makes it worth it,” she said.
“So many hard heats just made me want to work even harder and now I’ve gotten to this point and I want to keep going.
“Last year, I went surfing (here) right after the girl’s final and I could hear from the water them giving the trophies to someone else and I said to myself ‘Next year, I want to do that for myself’.”
Brooks’ three-peat was the first on the world tour since Australia’s eight-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore did it in 2008.
In the men’s final, Pupo got the better of one exchange, caught the bigger second wave of a set and belted it multiple times on his backhand for an excellent 8.5.
He then held his nerve and waited for a long left-hander on which he mixed up sharp turns and a small aerial to score a 6.27 for a 14.77 total and the lead as the clock wound down.
The tour now breaks into a two-event “post-season” with contests for the top 24 men and 16 women in Portugal and the Philippines, before the whole field returns for the season finale at Hawaii’s Pipeline in December.
