Looking Ahead to the Big Wave Awards Ask 100 big wave surfers if they’d rather win the Big Wave World Championship or the Big Wave Ride of the Year award, and you’ll get a pretty even split between the two. While a world championship puts you in the history books, Ride of the Year honors go to the single best big wave ridden all season—and for most people, that one wave will probably qualify as the best ride of their life. Every April, the WSL Big Wave Awards celebrate the best in heavy water heroics, bringing together the hardest charging...

John John Dominates Margaret River With Historic Performance The Rip Curl Bells Beach starts today, but the world (and the world tour) is still in shock from John John Florence’s performance last week at Margaret River. Main Break is notorious for being one of the most difficult waves in the world to surf well, and that point was proved time and again last week as the world’s best looked to be surfing…well, not quite at their best. The wonky, fat walls of Main Break simply don’t lend themselves to exciting, high-performance surfing, and more often than not leave competitors looking...

Drug Aware Margaret River Pro Going Small to Go Big The Drug Aware Margaret River Pro is on this week over in West Australia, the second stop on the WSL world tour. And to be honest, the main venue at Margaret River Main Break is not the most exciting wave in the world to surf or watch. The backup venues of North Point and The Box are exciting—North Point is the ultimate barrel to boost setup, and The Box is one of the original slabs—but we usually don’t get more than a day of competition at the backups, which is...