Leonardo Fioravanti: 17th at Sunset Beach in World Surf League

For a matter of seconds in the first stage at Pipeline; for very few points in the second event of the season, a Sunset Beach, also in Hawaii. The start of 2024’s Leonardo FioravantiIn the World Surf League Championship Tour, is characterized by bad luck, by heats that barely escaped. After reaching the quarterfinals in the first event of the year, the Italian surfer went out early Sunset, finishing in 17th place, with the defeat in the heat against the Australian Jacob Willcox: the opponent had the upper hand for a very short time, with a higher score of just 7 hundredths: 13.40 against 13.33.

FIORAVANTI’S COMMENT

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A joke that is part of the game when it comes to surfing. “I had a good heat but unfortunately it wasn’t enough. At this level when you make any mistake it can cost you the heat… Whatever the case, I’m happy with how I’m surfing and my moment will come! The work continues and we move forward”, words of Fioravanti on Instagram. Thus ends the Hawaiian parenthesis, now Leonardo’s home: the 26-year-old Roman finds himself with 6075 points in the ranking, in 13th place. But it is definitely early to look at the ranking: there are seven more stages scheduled before Trestles Finals (California), in which the top five finishers will play for the title. Now Leonardo will move in Puerto Rico for the Isa World Championships with the Italian national teambefore going in Portugal for the third stage of the Championship Tour, a Peniche.

THE RESULTS

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Two Australians won the Sunset Beach stage: Jack Robinson among men and Molly Picklum among women. For Robinson, this is the sixth career victory in a stage of the Championship Tour: he beat the Japanese in the final Kanoa Igarashi, silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Thanks to his success at Sunset, the Australian is second in the standings behind John John Florence and ahead of Barron Mamiya, Jordy Smith and Connor O’Leary. While Picklum, among the women, took the top spot with victory number two of her coaching career, both at Sunset: a great start to the season for the class of 2002, who had reached the final at Pipeline with the defeat against Caitlin Simmers, now second in the ranking. In third place there is Bettylou Sakura Johnsondefeated in the final at Sunset.