Why the WSL Won’t Be Heading to North Point This Year
Despite a pumping swell en route.
The third event of the Australian leg and fourth event of the 2021 WSL Championship Tour is set to commence this Sunday, May 2nd, in Margaret River, Western Australia.
The whole tour landed in WA yesterday in preparation for the event. John Florence reportedly skipped off the tarmac and winked at Medina on his way past (ok, not true but I’d really like it to be).
As if that wasn’t good news enough, there’s also a sizable southwest swell with clean conditions scheduled to impact the Margaret River region over the first two days of the waiting period.
The bad news? The WSL has reportedly not secured a permit for North Point this year. This is likely due to covid and the WSL wanting to maintain a tight bubble, which is quite easy to do between Main Break and the Box (which sit on opposite sides of the same bay), but much more difficult when you bring an entirely different zone (Gracetown, 20 mins north) into play.
As the locals will tell you, North Point is the best wave in the Margarets-Yallingup region. It doesn’t get good often, but when it does, there are few rights in the world that rival its power and perfection. To miss a classic day here would be devastating for the WSL, competitors, and fans alike.
Now, some caveats.
According to local sources, the forecasted swell is on the potentially-too-small side for proper North Point. In other words, even if the WSL were legally allowed to run there, it’s possible we would see a redux of that 2017 round one fiasco. You know—the day that was so slow it produced only one heat over 14 points, coming on the back of Sebastian Zietz’s absolute hero 10-pointer, which is the only thing anyone remembers from eight hours of competition at one of the “world’s best waves”.
…But you know what everyone remembers from that event? The surfing John Florence did in the later rounds at Margaret River Main Break, where he rode his 6’2 Pyzel Ghost to an 18.07 average heat total and the most dominant competitive performance in the history of our sport.
And lest we forget the eight-hour barrel-bender we enjoyed at The Box in 2019, which started with Italo’s guillotine evasion, middled with Conner Coffin’s porpoise posse, and ended with Jadson Andre’s live-streamed decapitation.
So even if we miss pumping North Point, we still have some great surfing to look forward to. And after the shocking run John suffered on the east coast (shouts to Morgan Cibilic), we can’t imagine how hot he’s gonna come out of the gates.
Medina and his dangly earring are officially on notice.
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