Wade Carmichael qualifies for 2018 Championship Tour

Stu Nettle picture
Stu Nettle (stunet)
Form Guide

Following his third place finish at the Vans World Cup at Sunset, Wade Carmichael has qualified for next year's Championship Tour.

Carmichael needed a strong result, at least a Quarter Final finish or above, to secure his position. In the end he made the Final, finishing third behind CT surfers Conner Coffin (first) and Kolohe Andino (second).

Carmichael is Australia's sole qualifier, rookie or otherwise, for the CT. In fact, this year Australia recorded it's lowest showing since the Qualifying Series began in 1992.

Sunset Beach has proven to be Carmichael's happy hunting ground, he scored second place to Ezekiel Lau there at the HIC Pro back in October. Nearly half his points on the Qualifying Series (QS) came from Sunset, and that stat alone sets him apart from most other QS qualifiers who score big points at small wave venues.

The World Cup was the last contest of the QS, meaning those on the bubble of qualification must sit and watch the Pipe Masters hoping for CT surfers to double qualify.

The QS surfers who'll definitely qualify for next year's CT are (number indicates position they finished on the QS):

Griffin Colapinto - 1
Jesse Mendes - 2
Wade Carmichael - 4
Tomas Hermes - 5
Yago Dora - 6
Willian Cardoso - 8
Keanu Asing - 9

There are three CT surfers in the Top 10 of the QS - Kanoa Igarishi (3), Italo Ferreira (7), and Ezekiel Lau (10) - none of whom are assured of qualification via the CT.

The surfers outside the Top 10 who'll be willing the three CT guys to double qualify are:

Michael Rodrigues - 11
Patrick Gudauskas - 13
Michael February - 15

12th and 14th are Filipe Toledo and Jordy Smith, both have done enough to qualify so Michael February is the last possible QS qualifier - and only if Igarishi, Ferreira, and Lau all have solid finishes at Pipe.

Comments

sharkman's picture
sharkman's picture
sharkman Monday, 4 Dec 2017 at 8:59am

Been watching Wade for years , thought he was one of Australia's best power surfers we have produced in a long time , just a really quiet guy , who blows up on waves , congratulations Wade , you deserve it!

TotalKOOK's picture
TotalKOOK's picture
TotalKOOK Monday, 4 Dec 2017 at 9:24am

Stoked to see wade get on tour hes style and power will do good I recon ! Hope they double qualify, would love to see patty and February on the tour !

saffa's picture
saffa's picture
saffa Monday, 4 Dec 2017 at 10:32am

Good on you Wade, been thereabouts for a few seasons, a battler.

Island Bay's picture
Island Bay's picture
Island Bay Monday, 4 Dec 2017 at 1:09pm

Yep, cause for celebration. Go Wade!

He was surfing so fricken good throughout the comp, and I was afraid that he was going to implode. Happily that only sort of happened in the final; it looked like he had run out of steam mentally and was chasing smaller ones on the inside. No surprise after having had his back up against the wall and belting the sh!t out of it.

Put your feet up and savour this one!

Finntim's picture
Finntim's picture
Finntim Monday, 4 Dec 2017 at 8:21pm

Some hectic turns in that final! New blood is always a good thing for ct, especially in meaty waves. Go Wade!

GreenCT's picture
GreenCT's picture
GreenCT Tuesday, 5 Dec 2017 at 2:29am

Despite a crazily slow internet I was following this and trying to do the maths and work out what he had to do make it.
So happy for him as I love a battler story
What I do not get is that with the changes WSL are putting in place in 2018 all of this end of year and drama goes.

Its sad as who ever is running this does not get that for surfing tragics like me they have something that works but even I cannot sit and watch 8 hours of surfing. For a non surfer it is boring as batshit and it all looks the same.

You have this building history of the triple crown and the end of year historics and tragedies and it is all been thrown out the door for some weird hybrid that will still not attract the viewers.

I get the wave pool thing with the leader going last and so that can have the pressure and excitment through that and maybe they can return to the air show idea and run this seperately.

The big wave thing as well can bring in viewers and with the alert system they can package this easily

But hy dont they get there costs down on the WSL contests. Stop building a city. Get it leaner
It will never make money but maybeexpectaions need to be lowered

Andrew P's picture
Andrew P's picture
Andrew P Tuesday, 5 Dec 2017 at 9:16am

I agree with your last point Green. What is with governing bodies and their infatuation with constant growth? Things (sports’ popularity, federal budgets) ebb and flow, if you set your sights for constant growth you are setting yourself up for failure at some point. It’s even better when they throw in the word sustainable cos we all know it isn’t.

I reckon that WSL need to focus on giving the surfers and core viewers what they want (like better waves, coverage and commentary, which they have done to a point (Brazil beachies!)) and let the sport sell itself, rather than trying to package it as an exciting new product and getting too big for their boots. But I guess if you are a wannabe CEO getting back to the core doesnt sound as sexy as “growing the sport” in your interview. Ha

GreenCT's picture
GreenCT's picture
GreenCT Tuesday, 5 Dec 2017 at 9:46am

Hi Andrew

Maybe with the almagamation of Quick and Bong and Ripcurl you will get a sponsor who gets a direct benefit from the tour as at the end of the days the CT surfers do help to sell product.

I think the three greatest events have been the massive swell t Cloudbreak the code red swell and the huge day at Chopes with the JJ and Slater semi. Shame the hardest chargers in that event had destroyed themselves and the surfer who played a conservative game won but that is competition.

So two of these events were freaks of nature and we were lucky to have the infrastructure there to watch, The commentating was great on these days as everyone was trying to lift their jaws off the floor. Completely irrelevent that there was no competition as the best surfers in the world for those conditions were in the water.

So this is why the big wave tour I think has more legs for growing an audience as it is life and death stuff.

I want my experience on the main comps to be more simple, Wake me up with a dawn patrol thats starts with Occ's alarm going off and getting in the car with a small crew to do the dawn patrol.

Make me feel like I am their with the banter that goes on in the morning with the crew doing the check. Do the check and then we know if we are tuning in for the day as they are asking for an audience to be involved for 8 hours or when their favourite surfer is coming up.

But at the end of the day you are still talking about a limited audience

I have decided to head to WA iron ore country. If the future of surfing is next to a train I know where there are km long trains running day in and day out so I can do the full olympic thing, The 100m the 200m the relay jesus I could even do a marathon.

You want multiple sections, we will even have the heptathlon requiring multiple equipment changes on the one wave as we go from mush burger to slab to stand up point style

Anyone got some spare machines ?