Tahiti Pro 2025: Finals Day

It brings me great joy to spread the glad tidings that Jack Robinson, by winning the Tahiti Pro today, makes the Final 5 - Robbo will contest for a world title at Cloudbreak in two weeks.

I'm equally joyous that Molly Picklum wins her second event of the year and takes the pole position into Fiji. Potentially just two or three rides from a World Title.

'You can't script this' goes the WSL mantra, yet it almost seemed so perfectly scripted as to be contrived. Jack's outlandish run from way outside the 5 to win the event from, the equally Hollywood-style run from Griff to save himself from the cut and end up deep inside the 5. Apart from a tight heat against Joao Chianca where Griff looked to be the lesser surfer, nothing either did on Finals Day had a whiff of controversy about it. Perfect mastery of Teahupoo from Jack, each heat building on the last until he needed just two waves in the Final to put Griff away.

Jack (WSL/Ryder)

Griff was scrappier, less choosy, prepared to take on more punishment - desensitised to poundings after days of tow-sized surf beat downs. Huge performance leaps in surf outside your realm of expertise are incredibly rare. We've seen that with Filipe - he just can't crack the nut on heavy reef surf. Two examples spring to mind: Slater becoming an expert in reef surf after thousands of hours at Pipe, de Souza developing the best bottom to top turn combination on tour, yet it's hard to match the increase in big barrel charging that now comes from Griffin Colapinto.

He put all his world title aspirations on the line and declared getting "the wave of my life'" is more important, demonstrating amply that those were not empty words. This kid has gone from a Trestles shredder and slider to a full-scale nutter.

The way he finished the heat against Joao was illustrative of the intent. Chianca had priority, needed a 7.34, yet instead of sitting out beside him like a stuffed dummy, Griff roamed the shallows picking off square west bombs, some with no exit. It was a statement as much to the judges - 'I am the surfer with more desire and control of the lineup' - as the fans watching. Despite what looked like slow heats, Griff enthused about the opportunities available, from deep runners, to west bowl cubes, to perfect bombs connecting the two sections.

Griff (WSL/Bielmann)

I hate to use the line “it's different when you see it live” but when you are live at Chopes the first thing you notice is just how much more complicated and diffuse the line-up is compared to the miniaturising effect of the webcast. The south runners, south-west bombs and west peaks feel miles away from each other.

If you accept the veracity of that statement you'll be less harsh in your assessment of Ethan Ewing's performance in his Quarter-Final loss to Griff. Griff took the learnings from his last five minutes of his heat against Joao and applied it to the first five minutes of the crucial heat with Ewing. Winner through to the Final 5, loser sent home with a seven month off season to marinate on the loss.

Griff snuck in wide and pulled one of the hollow west nuggets right from under Ethan's nose. At least, that's how it looked on the webby. In reality, the five metres or so between might as well as have been a mile - Griff was in the spot, Ewing was not. Judges paid the foamball wrangle on the smaller west slab with an 8.33. When he backed up that ride with a similar insider less than five minutes later, and went excellent again, it was all over for the Stradbroke Islander.

Great year for Ethan, but he couldn't quite lift the pace when he needed to. There was steel in Ewing's resolve today but he couldn't match the light-hearted stoicism of Colapinto. He'd declared earlier, he was “laughing at the whole scenario” and that “life calls the shots. I'm trusting life and not getting in the way of that”. He then offered an even more detached, wide-angle view declaring the drama of the Final 5 playing out was “epic for everyone”.

Not just true, but incredibly effective. How can you lose when you've already abandoned yourself to fate, content with whatever vicissitudes of fortune the day brings?

Ethan (WSL/Bielmann)

Considering what he has achieved at Chopes this week in both free-surfing and the contest, plus the body of work through the year in waves big and small, it's probably fair to say Griff is the most well-rounded surfer on the planet. It would have been a cosmic travesty, even for Griff, if he did not get off the plane at Nadi International Airport in two weeks.

Yago lost but retains yellow, looking shakier now with Griff and Jack in the draw. Jordy remains in No.2 position, looking even more vulnerable to the new barbarians inside the citadel: the laughing guru who loves to dispense folk wisdom, and the vortex shaman himself. Robinson was so in the zone today he became non-verbal. One word answered replies to admittedly lame questions. Later, Jack described his mindset as “still and free”. Just chilling in the moment.

Those moments did include some bare-knuckle gamesmanship, competing for position with Italo Ferriera. Feints and almost blocks that caused Robinson fans to stop breathing for long moments as priority judges reviewed the altercation. No sanction handed down, thankfully.

After making the tour in 2019 via a win at Sunset Beach and sitting out 2020 due to COVID shutting down the sport, Jack squeaked past the 2021 cut on the back of a win in Mexico. Since then he has made Finals Day in '22, '23 and '24, failing to win a single heat in those three consecutive attempts.

Jack (WSL/Bielmann)

To win a maiden world title he will have to win six heats at Cloudbreak. He gave a clue as to how today. As he marched through the draw, Jack became more economical, catching six waves in his Round of 16 clash with Marco Mignot, four waves in his Quarter-Final win over Italo, three waves in his Semi-Final win over Crosby Colapinto, and, to demonstrate how accurately he had identified the waves he wanted to ride and how masterfully he was riding them, only two to win the Final against Griff.

This is not a man who suffers from fatigue in pumping surf. His small wave surfing still looks unconvincing yet when it's heaving it's guts out into the channel and the vortex shaman gets to the whisper or the high whinny of a flighty racehorse the normal processes of mental or physical fatigue do not apply.

The problem for Molly Picklum wearing No 1 will be coming in cold at Cloudbreak against a warmed up opponent with her specs in. Yet she also, like Jack, offered a convincing dry run simulation of that situation today. With no warm-up she was sent out with Caity Simmers with solid Chopes bombs coming through every so often. No warm-up waves required for Pickles to pick up the momentum she left with on the last day of competition. In her mind, taking the beatings that day had entitled her to an easier, more calculated performance. She intended to make her waves and after threading three wide open tubes she left the Final victorious with a brace of 8's.

Molly (WSL/ Bielmann, Ryder)

Caity later claimed you needed to be both “stupid and calculating” to surf Chopes and her heat had veered too closely to stupid to get the W. One deep foamball ride with no exit will be banked in the recesses for later usage. That wave was a 10 if she made it. Please find it and watch.

That's it, for the 2025 regular season. The end of the ELO era now set in stone. The mid-year cut is gone, and I will miss it. From the perspective of fairness, yeah sure, it's more fair to give the surfers a solid year to show their wares, particuarly rookies in this era of sparse sponsorship. From the perspective of making the tour more exciting and lifting the stakes and the level of performance, I can see no logical refutation of the mid-year cut after observing four years of its effects.

Caity (WSL/Bielmann)

Rookies, as noted by Ethan Ewing, are so much hungrier now. They have to be. No finding your feet over the course of a year as he did. You need to come out of the egg, as it were, fully formed and fighting for survival. Fight for your spot or slink into obscurity back on the Challenger. That development has been awesome to watch. Mignot was insane this year, as were Al Cleland and Joel Vaughan.

The Final 5 I was more ambivalent about, but always wanted to see it road-tested at a proper wave like Cloudbreak, before it was binned. Trestles was always the problem which obscured the true potential of the concept. It'll never return now, at least under current ownership. Probably for the best we go back to Pipe, but I had learned to love the Hawaiian opening too, at least before they sullied it by losing Sunset to pander to the sheiks.

We also lose the insane spectacle of Teahupoo deciding the Final 5, which has constantly now delivered the best moments this sport can provide. Not to worry, the people have spoken.

Where do we rate that performance from Jack, and to a slightly lesser extent Molly?

10/10 for Jack, 9.5/10 for Pickles?

No..?

Throw your own numbers at it then.

//STEVE SHEARER

Lexus Tahiti Pro Presented by I-SEA Women’s Final Results:
1 - Molly Picklum (AUS) 17.26
2 - Caitlin Simmers (USA) 4.94

Lexus Tahiti Pro Presented by I-SEA Men’s Final Results: 
1 - Jack Robinson (AUS) 16.90
2 - Griffin Colapinto (USA) 13.67

Lexus Tahiti Pro Presented by I-SEA Men’s Semifinal Results: 
HEAT 1: Jack Robinson (AUS) 18.10 DEF. Crosby Colapinto (USA) 11.66
HEAT 2: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 14.83 DEF. Mihimana Braye (PYF) 14.77

Lexus Tahiti Pro Presented by I-SEA Men’s Quarterfinal Results: 
HEAT 1: Crosby Colapinto (USA) 16.63 DEF. Kauli Vaast (FRA) 15.54
HEAT 2: Jack Robinson (AUS) 15.80 DEF. Italo Ferreira (BRA) 14.07
HEAT 3: Mihimana Braye (PYF) 14.93 DEF. Cole Houshmand (USA) 11.50
HEAT 4: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 16.76 DEF. Ethan Ewing (AUS) 14.20

Lexus Tahiti Pro Presented by I-SEA Men’s Round of 16 Results: 
HEAT 1: Kauli Vaast (FRA) 15.43 DEF. Jordy Smith (RSA) 3.33
HEAT 2: Crosby Colapinto (USA) 9.34 DEF. Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 9.20
HEAT 3: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 11.33 DEF. Rio Waida (INA) 1.94
HEAT 4: Jack Robinson (AUS) 11.67 DEF. Marco Mignot (FRA) 10.93
HEAT 5: Mihimana Braye (PYF) 10.77 DEF. Yago Dora (BRA) 7.33
HEAT 6: Cole Houshmand (USA) 10.67 DEF. Jake Marshall (USA) 5.53
HEAT 7: Ethan Ewing (AUS) 16.23 DEF. Alan Cleland (MEX) 14.16
HEAT 8: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 15.00 DEF. Joao Chianca (BRA) 14.97