It’s been a big year for surfing wildcards. In the last event on the CT calendar in Fiji, 17-year-old Erin Brooks claimed a win, surfing as a Wildcard in her first CT event. That came on the back of Vahine Fierro becoming the first Tahitian wildcard to claim a victory at Teahupo’o in August.
Yet Wildcard wins are, typically, not that common. Between 2008 and 2022, there wasn't a wildcard winner in the Men’s on the CT. So when they do happen, it's big news. But is a wildcard win a guaranteed precursor to future success? We investigate.
We mentioned Brooks and Fierro. While it should be too to draw any conclusions, with Brooks it’s inconceivable that she won’t go on to not only make the CT but potentially win a World Title. Having just turned 17, and with a complete package of airs, carves and barrel riding, she could be a game changer.
Fierro is a slightly different case. Aged 24, her victory was borne of her local knowledge and expertise at her Tahitian home break. Yet the win came after a Finals appearance in the Challenger Series at Ballito, held in two-foot righthand beachbreaks. She has been missed out by just a few heats of CT qualification in the last three years. If she can get over the line, her ability at Pipeline, Teahupoo and Fiji could establish her as a force.
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That might not be the case for Moana Wong-Jones , who claimed a win as Wildcard at the Pipeline Masters in 2022. Again this falls into the wildcard-as-specialist category, with Wong-Jones known as the best female Pipe surfer for the last five years. Her win gave her a temporary rating’s lead, and a spot in the next CT event at Sunset. After an early-round loss there, she hasn’t been handed any CT wildcards since. She will be favorite any time she surfs Pipeline, but that’s where the CT story ends.
Her fellow Hawaiian Barron Mamiya had a very different narrative arc. Having failed to make the cut in 2021, he was awarded a wildcard for Pipeline. After an early round loss, he thought his lifelines were done. However, he was gifted another for Sunset and made it count, winning the event. He was the first male wildcard to do so since Bruno Santos at Tahiti in 2008.
“It was a crazy feeling, not being on the CT and then winning a CT contest and being number one in the world,” said Mamiya afterwards. “It happened so fast and it kind of took me off guard. But now, I’ve taken it all in and I’m super stoked to be in the position I’m in.”
Mamiya has maintained that position ever since. He finished 16th in 2022, 12th in 2023 and 14th this year. He also claimed another CT win at Pipe earlier this year. That wildcard allocation was prescient and changed his career.
The years before Mamiya’s win, known as the wildcard wilderness years, are harder to explain. Wildcards were always allocated by both by sponsors and the WSL at each event, yet none ever made their mark.
Related: Vahine Fierro Wins Tahiti Pro in Historic, XL Conditions: 'Best Waves of My Life'
Mikey Wright , for example, secured a wildcard for Bells at 2022, to go along with a string of them in his 2018 season. Explosive and with box office appeal, the wildcards made sense, though being given eight out of eleven world tour events was somewhat overkill. Like Yago Dora , who scored a few back-to-back in 2017, Wright didn't win an event but used them to qualify.
In 2015, Dane Reynolds also landed a string of wildcards as the WSL and sponsors tried to lure the recalcitrant competitor back into competition. “I turned my back on it (the tour) and they’re giving me spots at events so there’s a weird psychological thing I have to get over,” Dane said at the time. He didn’t and walked away for good in 2016.
Before the wildcard wilderness, a win was a definite sign of upcoming greatness. Before Jones-Wong, the last woman to do it was Tyler Wright, who won Sunset in 2010 as a 16-year-old. Mind you, that was two years after she became the youngest surfer to win a CT at the Beachley Classic. You couldn't say we weren't warned.
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Steph Gilmore had done the same, a few years earlier, as a 17-year-old. She won Roxy Pro Gold Coast in 2005 as a wildcard and backed up with the 2006 Havaianas Beachley Classic. In 2007, in her first year on tour, she claimed the World Title.
That leaves just two of the more iconic Wildcard victories that corrupted the surf time continuum forever. In 1999, an 18-year-old called Joel Parkinson was granted a wildcard for the J-Bay comp by his sponsor which he grabbed with both hands and rode to victory.
"I thought I was going to be murdered when I surfed against the CT guys," he recalled. "But I remember watching that first day going, 'Oh, okay, so that's that guy. He doesn't look quite as good as he did in the movie." Parko would win three more CTs at J-Bay, and a World Title.
In the case of anything you can do, I can do better, two years later Parko’s best mate and future rival Mick Fanning, matched him with a wildcard win at Bells. Somehow it seemed more seismic. At his sponsor’s event, at the most iconic surfing competition in Australia (and arguably the world), in perfect Bells on Easter Sunday, with a massive crowd behind him, the 18-year-old stormed to victory. He scored the nickname White Lightning and showed that there was a new surfing sheriff in town.
The signs therefore for Erin Brooks are overwhelmingly positive. To win as a wildcard is a, relatively, rare occurrence in surfing history. The majority of wildcard winners, and all those who won as teenagers, have gone on to become greats of the sport. No pressure then.
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