(Reuters) – Brazil’s world champion Filipe Toledo got his revenge over Griffin Colapinto to win the Surf City El Salvador Pro on Friday, coming from behind to beat the young Californian who had got the better of him in the final last year.
Florida’s Caroline Marks overcame a stacked finals day to win her first event of the 2023 World Tour, boosting her hopes of qualifying for the end of year Top Five spot and for a spot on Team USA for the Paris Olympics.
Marks used her strong backhand attack on the long, cobblestone point of Punta Roca to beat Australia’s two-time world champion Tyler Wright in the final and claim her fourth world championship tour event.
“It feels good to win at a point break, I’ve only won at beach breaks before, so yeah, I’m super pysched!,” Marks said.
Battling an injury, Toledo started slowly and trailed an in-form Colapinto for the first two-thirds of the final before picking up an overhead set wave and unleashing a series of searing carves. He backed up that excellent 9 out of 10 with an 8.33 on his next wave to seal the deal.
Colapinto and Toledo are ranked one and two in the world as the tour to Brazil for the third-last stop on the 10-event world tour.
The top five men and women at the end of the tour will compete in a one-day finals competition in California in September.
Coveted spots at next year’s Olympics are also up for grabs, with the top 10 men and top eight women at the end of the tour booking a ticket to the perfect reef pass of Teahupo’o in Tahiti.
(Reporting by Lincoln Feast in Sydney; editing by Pritha Sarkar)
