Toledo wins instant classic over wildcard Wilson at Gold Coast Pro

Reuters

10-05-2025

May 10 (Reuters) - Brazil's two-time world champion Felipe Toledo beat Australian wildcard Julian Wilson to win the Gold Coast Pro in an instant pro surfing classic on Saturday, a decade after the two met at the finals of the same event.
The 36-year-old Wilson stepped away from the tour in 2021 as COVID travel restrictions and the demands of a young family took a toll, but has targeted 2025 as his comeback year and won the trials to get a spot in the main event.
Wilson took down a number of top surfers, including 2019 world champion Italo Ferreira and Japan's 2020 Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Kanoa Igarashi on his run to the final with some of the biggest and most technical aerials seen all season.
But Toledo, who rejoined the tour this year after taking a mental health break in 2024, was also in rare form in high quality, head-high waves at the right-hand point break of Burleigh Heads.
Toledo scored the event's only perfect 10 for a deep, long tube and alley-oop aerial in his semifinal against compatriot Alejo Muniz and started the final with an excellent score for a full rotation air.
Wilson quickly responded with two high-risk spins of his own but his lead was short-lived as Toledo racked up two even better scores, combining searing turns, deep tubes and lofty airs.
Toledo's hefty two wave total of 17.60 out of 20 looked to be enough but Wilson refused to give up. He scored an 8.8 late in the final before somewhat controversially winning priority, exchanging some angry words with his rival and catching one last wave as the clock ticked down.
Needing another 8.8, his final score was 8.4, leaving him 0.4 points short at 17.20 out of 20 to give Toledo the win - the same result as when they met in the 2015 final.
"It's not easy to step away from the thing you love, to prioritise your family and watch from the sidelines, and these surfers inspire me so much. This is what I was born to do," Wilson said, paying credit to Toledo and his chanting Brazilian fans.
Hawaii's Bettylou Sakura Johnson broke through to win her first world championship tour event with a dominant performance over Australian veteran Sally Fitzgibbons in the women's finals.
Both Fitzgibbons, 34, and Johnson, 20, struggled in the early part of the season, with neither progressing past the quarterfinals in the first five events of the tour.
Johnson got off to an ideal start in their final, scoring an 8.5 out of 10 for a series of powerful turns on a fast-grinding wave. Before her rival could get a decent score, Johnson backed it up for a 6.5 and a 15-point heat total.
"This is the best feeling in the world and I'm over the moon to have my first win here on the Gold Coast," said Johnson. "Yeah, this is what winning feels like and I want to keep winning."
The wins boost both Johnson and Toledo to sixth in the world.
The tour next heads to the Margaret River Pro in Western Australia for stop number seven, after which the men's and women's fields will be cut by a third for the remaining four events. The top five surfers will then face off in a one-day, winner-takes-all finale in Fiji in August.