World Team win historic surfing event
Jordy Smith led the world team to victory at historic WSL Founders’ Cup of Surfing.
THE World Team captained by South Africa’s Jordy Smith made history by winning the inaugural World Surf League (WSL) Founders’ Cup of Surfing in California on Sunday.
The first-ever official event at the WSL Surf Ranch, in front of a sellout crowd, was a showcase of incredible surfing and competition as the world’s best female and male surfers battled in teams for their home countries.
Highlighting how globally strong the sport of surfing is, it was the combined World Team who took an incredibly tight win ahead of Brazil in 2nd, USA in 3rd, Australia in 4th and Europe in 5th.
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World Team was spearheaded by South African pair Jordy Smith and Bianca Buitendag and superbly backed up by Michel Bourez (Tahiti), Paige Hareb (New Zealand) and Kanoa Igarashi (Japan).
Heading into the last heat of the final, Brazil held the lead and the World Team needed a big performance from Smith on his last wave as he came up against USA team captain Kelly Slater and Filipe Toledo of the Brazil team. Under pressure, Smith delivered a phenomenal final ride to earn the required score for the team’s victory at the Founders’ Cup of Surfing.
“It’s an incredible feeling to win as a team. That was a wild few days and this just leaves room for bigger and better things to come. We’ve been talking about it as a team all weekend, and you can’t leave anything on the table when it comes to finals day. You just let it all hang out and enjoy it, and if you can pull that off you’ll walk away with a win. I think all week long we’ve been the underdogs and determination got us through it. Collectively, we just held our confidence up the whole time and supported each other all the way,” said Smith.
The Brazil Team finished second, fractionally ahead of USA and Australia.
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