Surfing is not a part of the 2016 Rio Olympics, something to do with the waves not being ready…we jest of course-the exclusion of surfing was to reduce the Australian gold medal haul. Still jesting.
The sport will appear in the 2023 Tokyo Games, but purists are howling in protest over the fact that the ever-resourceful, innovative and technology-loving Japanese plan to deploy an artificial wave machine in order to take the element of luck out of the equation.
Rio de Janeiro is, however, currently holding an event of the World Surf League and Australian women are dominating in typical fashion. Sally Fitzgibbons, Tyler Wright and Stephanie Gilmore have all advanced.
Wright is seeking to produce her third win in just the fourth stop of the WSL and she set the bar high with a third round combined score of 16.90. She credits her new coach Glen “Micro” Hall with the uptick in her results.
Meanwhile, Fitzgibbons is chasing her third win in the event by beating Aussie Keely Andrew and American lass Tatiana Weston-Webb with a 13.77 combined score for two waves.
As many as six Aussie women could reach the quarterfinals where they will have to contend with women’s ratings leader Courtney Conlogue of the U.S.
