The start of the World Surf League’s 2017 Championship Tour has been delayed with insufficient swell at Snapper Rocks resulting in a lay day being called at the season-opening event.
WSL commissioner Kieren Perrow said the conditions on the Gold Coast were “not ideal” on Tuesday morning and that there would be no competition until later in the week.
“Thursday onward is looking really good, so hopefully we will get underway on Thursday and if not then, into Friday,” Perrow said on day one of the 12-day event window.
When action does get underway, Tyler Wright will start the defence of the title she won so convincingly last year in an all-Australian heat with Nikki van Dijk and Alyssa Lock.
Six-times world champion Stephanie Gilmore, Sally Fitzgibbons, Keely Andrew, Bronte Macaulay and Laura Enever make up an eight-woman Australian contingent at the elite event at Snapper Rocks.
In the men’s event, three-times world champions and local hero Mick Fanning, who is returning to the CT full-time after a disrupted 2016, will attract plenty of interest in his opening heat against Kelly Slater, a winner of 11 world titles, and Jeremy Flores.
Tyler Wright’s brother Owen is also making a return to competitive surfing after a year out following a brain injury sustained in Hawaii at the end of 2015, while a third Wright sibling, Mikey, comes up against defending world champion John John Florence in his opening heat.
The women’s Roxy Pro and men’s Quiksilver Pro kick off the nine-month-long Champions Tour, which takes in 10 and 11 events, respectively.
After Snapper Rocks, the Tour moves to Margaret River in Western Australia and then Bells Beach in Victoria before heading overseas to take in stops in Brazil, Fiji, South Africa, Tahiti, the US, France, Portugal and Hawaii.
