Canadian surfer Erin Brooks finishes 9th at El Salvador event
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Canadian Erin Brooks finished ninth at the Surf City El Salvador Pro on Saturday after being edged out by American Bella Kenworthy in a tight round-of-16 battle.
It was a battle of teenage rookies on the World Surf League's elite Championship Tour in La Libertad, El Salvador.
Brooks is 17 while Kenworthy, a former elite skateboarder whose father is well-known surf photographer Jason Kenworthy, is 18.
It was a back-and-forth heat, with both surfers looking to put together the highest-scoring pair of waves. A 7.00 moved Brooks ahead with a combined 11.77 score but Kenworthy answered with a 5.83 that, combined with an earlier score of 6.33, put her in the lead at 12.16.
Brooks then ran out of time to catch her. Kenworthy moved on to face American Gabriela Bryan in quarterfinal action.
The event is the fourth stop of the season on the Championship Tour.
Brooks came to El Salvador sixth in the standings after finishing third last time out at the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal in March, fifth at the Surf Abu Dhabi Pro and ninth in the season-opening Lexus Pipe Pro in Hawaii.
Brooks became the first Canadian to earn full-time status on the Championship Tour by finishing in the top five of the second-tier Challenger Series last year. She won in her only previous appearance on the Championship Tour as a wild card, defeating Olympic silver medallist Tatiana Weston-Webb of Brazil last August in the final of the Fiji Pro.
After El Salvador, the tour shifts to Australia (for three straight events), the United States, Brazil, South Africa and Tahiti before closing with the WSL Finals in Fiji from Aug. 27 to Sept. 4.
The season opened with 18 competitors on the women's side — the top 10 finishers from the 2024 Championship Tour, the top five from the 2024 Challenger Series, two WSL season wild cards and one event wild card. The field will be cut to 12 after seven events and then five for the season-ending WSL Finals.
The 36-competitor men's field will be reduced to 24 at the midseason cut and then five ahead of Fiji.
The winning prize money ranges from $80,000 U.S. in the season opener to $100,000 after the midseason cut and $200,000 for the WSL Finals.
Brooks started surfing at nine when her family moved to Hawaii from Texas. She has Canadian ties through her American-born father Jeff, who is a dual American-Canadian citizen, and her grandfather who was born and raised in Montreal
Brooks gained her Canadian citizenship last year after a lengthy legal battle that limited her Olympic qualifying opportunities to the ISA World Surfing Games last March in Puerto Rico. Brooks, whose family also has a home in Tofino, B.C., fell short and had to watch the Olympic surfing competition in Tahiti from afar.
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