Locals Courtney Conlogue, Kanoa Igarashi step up at Tahiti surf event
Sage Hill School graduate Courtney Conlogue got a long-awaited win.
Meanwhile, Huntington Beach resident Kanoa Igarashi also got what he was looking for out of the Outerknown Tahiti Pro, the final World Surf League championship tour of the season that concluded last weekend.
Conlogue, now 29, stepped up at the event on the beach of Teahupo’o in Tahiti, French Polynesia. She topped Brisa Hennessy of Costa Rica, 11.67 points to 5.20, in the final for her first World Surf League win in more than three years.
Conlogue, a two-time U.S. Open of Surfing champion, also beat seven-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore of Australia in the quarterfinals. She then got past Tatiana Weston-Webb of Brazil by a small margin, 7.66 to 7.30, in the semifinals.
“I’m so grateful,” she said on the WSL webcast. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a win ... great way to finish the season.”
Conlogue’s last tour victory came in April 2019 at the Pro Bells Beach in Victoria, Australia.
She wrote in a subsequent Instagram post Saturday that she was at a loss for words following her latest victory. It was her 13th overall on the Championship Tour.
“Yesterday was so wild,” Conlogue wrote. “You always visualize a journey, but the journey always flows in unpredictable ways like water. I’m so grateful for all the love and support with this win. It has been a intense and emotional year full of challenges and the unknown. Life is always showing you how to adapt, grow and handle. Yesterday tested my ability to do so. Thank you to everyone who has been in my corner and has supported this journey.”
Igarashi, also a two-time U.S. Open winner, came into the event ranked No. 6 in the world. That left the 24-year-old one spot out of qualifying for the season-ending World Surf League Finals.
The finals, a single-day contest to decide the champions, will be held at Lower Trestles in San Clemente during a window from Sept. 8 through 16.
He advanced to the quarterfinals in Tahiti, which was good enough to bump him up to the Final Five, as he booked a trip to his first WSL Finals.
Igarashi caught a 9.70 wave at the end of his Round of 16 heat against Jadson Andre, which was enough for him to surpass San Clemente’s Griffin Colapinto in the standings. Colapinto came into the Tahiti event ranked No. 5, but lost there in the Round of 16.
“I really don’t know what to say — this is super emotional to me,” Igarashi said in an interview with the WSL. “I’m lost for words right now. First of all, I want to thank Teahupo’o — I’ve been coming here for so long and spending time with some of the locals and preparing myself for a moment like this, and when that wave came I knew if it was meant to be, it was going to happen right there. Now, I’m into the Top 5 and heading home.”
Brazil’s Miguel Pupo was the men’s winner of the Tahiti event.
The other men’s surfers at the WSL Finals include Jack Robinson and Ethan Ewing of Australia, as well as Brazil’s Filipe Toledo and Italo Ferreira. Hennessy, Gilmore and Weston-Webb will vie for the women’s title, along with Hawaii’s Carissa Moore and Johanne Defay of France.
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