Aloha,
The first event of the sensational 2025 World Surf League Championship Tour, the Lexus Pipe Pro, was held on February 8th on the beautiful North Shore of Oahu. Making Hawai’i proud, Barron Mamiya secured back-to-back victories, claiming the men’s title for both 2024 and 2025! On the women’s side, Australia’s Tyler Wright took the win. Both athletes will now move on to the second event of the tour in Abu Dhabi in the coming week.
Now, aside from these awesome wins, let’s get into the details of this unforgettable event on our beautiful North Shore. I was lucky enough to spend the day watching the competition, surrounded by a crowd of equally stoked Hawaii Pacific students and surf fans.
A high-performance event with perfect weather, good surf conditions and a great crowd to make the event. Since the sport is a reliant on nature’s cooperation, everything had to align perfectly for the competition to be called on. After being pushed off for a week, the time finally came, and the waves delivered bringing fans from everywhere to celebrate this moment in history.
In the mens final, the exciting fourth and final heat was coming to an end, and there was a tie between Barron Mamiya and Italy’s Leonardo Fioravanti. As the clock counted down, each surfer tied with a score of 17.97 scoring of their best two waves. The winner was ultimately decided by the highest single wave score- giving Barron Mamiya the winning lead.
For the women’s athletes, it came down to Tyler Wright and California’s, Caitlin Simmers. Both athletes took some heavy wipeouts, but managing to pick themselves back up, delivered great performances. Wrapping up the women’s finals, Tyler claimed her second title, earning a 7.70 heat total to Caity’s 3.94, a well deserved win.
The North Shore community did an amazing job at hosting this years Pipe Pros being in the heart of surf culture. Gathering and celebrating this iconic event, on the beautiful North Shore, was a memorable experience as everyone in attendance displayed compassion and aloha for their love of the sport and the ocean. Let’s see what next year’s competition has in store after this year’s epic show-down starring some of the world’s best athletes!
Mahalo for tuning in, see you next week!
Bronwyn
