The Quiksilver Pro marks the beginning of the pro surfing calendar, but on Sunday at Snapper Rocks emotions ran to heights you might expect from a season decider. There was barely a dry eye on the beach as Owen Wright, competing in his first elite tour event since sustaining a brain injury late in 2015, was chaired from the ocean by his siblings Tyler and Mikey having claimed a famous victory at the 2017 Champions Tour opener.

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Wright defeated his good friend Matt Wilkinson in the final, 14.66 points to 13.50 for the record, to win his third WSL title but there was so much more to this story. As recently as last month, Wright was still unsure whether he would return to the highest level of surfing after a fall at Pipeline in Hawaii at the 2015 season-ender left him in hosiptal with severe concussion and bleeding on the brain.

Wright’s recovery has been long and arduous but, with the support of friends, family and the wider surfing community – and no shortage of grit and determination on his behalf – he has not only been able to get back on his surfboard, but win the year’s first event and install himself as the early frontrunner in the world title race.

“I think it was the start of February – I was sitting in the doctor’s office and there were question marks on the year,” he said after his victory. “So to be sitting here right now, we just pushed hard and went hard and confronted every fear of getting back into it. There were a lot of questions of getting back into the sport and back into pretty much what took me out and could have taken me out forever. I just kept going and kept doing it.”

The roster of surfers who have won Snapper says something about the local dominance here. Since 2002, Australians have won it nine times. The most prolific non-Australian is Kelly Slater – he has won it four times over that period. This year promised intrigue from multiple quarters: Australian debutante Connor O’Leary surfing his first world tour heat; Slater himself beginning the year which he says will be his last, and thus finding himself cast in the unlikely role of sentimental favourite; Mick Fanning coming back from a year off; and, significantly, Wright coming back from his potentially career-ending head injury.

On the women’s side of the draw, there might never have been a more tightly-packed field: last year’s wildly popular world champion Tyler Wright looking to entrench her reign, closely shadowed by Carissa Moore and a rampaging Steph Gilmore. Two multiple world champions, breathing down the neck of a brand-new one.

By Sunday, the stars were perfectly aligned over these sub-plots. Both men’s and women’s draws had been run through to the quarter-finals. Despite a forecast of onshore winds and heavy rain, the day dawned offshore and only drizzling, and the swell had held sufficiently to guarantee quality heats. There had been upsets along the way: most significantly Julian Wilson, then Fanning bundled out in round three by Wright. Standing waist deep on the superbank watching both surfers fly past, it was hard to sense where the crowd’s loyalties lay – Fanning had the obvious local affection, but there wasn’t a soul on the point who didn’t want to see Wright excel.

Wright faced an unexpectedly dominant O’Leary in the quarter-final, and again found himself dividing the crowd’s loyalties. The heat ended in high drama as both surfers caught simultaneous waves on the siren and went blow-for-blow down the racetrack edge of the sandbank, in a thrilling end to what had otherwise been a lacklustre heat. After long minutes of analysis, the judges gave it to Wright, but O’Leary can walk away from this effort with his head up. We’ll see more from him this year.

A switch to the women’s finals mid-morning saw Frenchwoman Johanne Defay account for Phillip Island local Nikki van Dijk, followed by something truly unexpected: Lakey Peterson, another surfer who’d been mostly absent in 2016, turned in a powerful display to easily dispose of Tyler Wright. The semi-finals read like a study in contrasts: Defay and Peterson the lesser-known quantities, and on the other side of the draw, Sally Fitzgibbons staring down Gilmore: a duel that has been played out countless times all over the globe.

And it was Gilmore in the end, smiling as she would have done anyway, in front of a massive beach crowd who followed every wave in the rain, taking out her sixth Roxy Pro title and inevitably kicking off the world title talk. And she wasn’t hosing it down afterwards. “Yeah, I’d love to win another world title,” she said.

The men’s tournament, meanwhile, came down to a matchup between last year’s winner Wilkinson, and the indomitable Wright. Goofy versus goofy: two big, powerful surfers trading backhand waves at a venue that traditionally doesn’t favour them. Wright in particular is known for his courage in heavy barrels: but the sight of him uncoiling from his crouched stance into his full six-foot-three frame and swinging through a high-speed top turn is one of the best sights in surfing.

Conditions had deteriorated into a grey, sloppy ocean by the time the final got underway and yet the crowd just kept building. The pair share the same coach – the enigmatic Irishman Glenn “Micro” Hall, who also coached Tyler Wright to her world title. He is clearly doing something right, but for Wilkinson there must have been conflict as the two good friends paddled out: who wants to be the guy who ends the fairytale comeback?

It didn’t matter: in a tense final, it was Wright who prevailed, kicking off his season as world No1 and pulling off one of the most emotional wins in recent surfing memory. “I’m just so stoked,” he said. “To be in that final with Wilko, he’s one of my best mates. We just had a great time. It went back and forth and turned out my way but I’m sure there’s another one down the track that will turn out his way.”

Six days into the contest window, and defying the weather to the end, the Quiksilver Pro had delivered again. Next, the Tour moves to Western Australia’s Margaret River for what promises to be a riveting follow-up.



