The third stop of the World Surf League has wrapped with Griffin Colapinto and Tatiana Weston-Webb claiming victory in three to four-foot surf at Supertubos.
Competitors battled windy heavy surf for five days to end up in pristine barrel conditions with glassy and rippable peaks arriving just in time for the Finals.
Tatiana took on Lakey Peterson, and with her victory, she makes it into the WSL Top 5 and claimed her career third win on the Championship Tour, bouncing back in a big way after a deceiving start to her season where she was eliminated twice in equal 9th place at Pipeline and Sunset.
“I’m just so grateful. God always has a plan, and I just trusted in Him,” Weston-Webb said. “Honestly, I just had so much fun out there! Lakey and I had such a great battle back and forth, I was really stoked just to be out there. I think I can do anything I put my mind to. That’s the beauty of surfing and the beauty of just trusting and believing in yourself if you have that mental ability to just overcome those obstacles that put you down.
“For me, the beginning of the year was such a bad start, and it was at two venues I thought I would do really well at,” she continued. “So for me, I know God has a plan, and I will just trust in it and keep surfing and trying my best and believing in myself. That’s the nature of every competition; you just need to continue believing in yourself no matter what.”
A quiet start to the men’s Final was quickly forgotten when Filipe Toledo posted the first good score for a combination of quick backhand snaps to build an early lead. Griffin Colapinto stayed patient and waited for the bigger set of waves to push his backside turns and stayed in the heat with a big score of his own.
Both surfers went back-and-forth and grabbed the lead off each other multiple times but eventually, the Californian found the edge with his vertical attack of the lefts for the win.
“It’s so weird you just get in this mode where you’re not even thinking about it,” Colapinto said. ”Even winning doesn’t feel like I thought it would, I’m still in this calm state where it hasn’t even set in. It’s so cool, I’m just trying to take in seeing Kolohe (Andino) and all my friends come up to me after the final.”
Colapinto earned his very first CT win in fantastic fashion, scoring deep barrels earlier this week, nailing the first perfect 10 point ride of the season last night on a massive air, and sealing the deal with brilliant rail work today. After a slow start in Hawaii, the Californian jumped 20 spots up to 7th on the WSL rankings after the completion of event No.3.
