Outerknown Fiji Women’s Pro Final Set for Sunday

The Outerknown Fiji Women’s Pro, Stop No. 5 on the 2017 World Surf League Championship Tour, will not be running the Final today, the last day of the competition window, due to poor conditions.

Commissioner Jessi Miley-Dyer (center) with Outerknown Fiji Women’s Pro finalists Tatiana Weston-Webb of Hawaiʻi (left) and Courtney Conlogue of the USA (right) were excited to announce the final will take place on Sunday in expected 6-8 foot Cloudbreak conditions, a move set to make World Surf League history as the womens event window has been extended to incorporate the record setting conditions for women’s Championship Tour surfing.
Credit : © WSL / Cestari
Photographer : Kelly Cestari
Social Media : @WSL @kc80

The men’s and women’s Commissioners (Kieren Perrow and Jessi Miley-Dyer) have coordinated to allow the women’s Final to take place on Sunday morning, the opening day of the men’s window, when the surf is projected to be solid.

“Final day of the window and we don’t have any surf on offer,” said WSL Deputy Commissioner Jessi Miley-Dyer. “The concept behind the OK Fiji Pro is to have both the men and women challenge themselves in solid, critical conditions. We can’t always promise that and while we’ve had some impressive surfing already this week, conditions deteriorated too rapidly to complete the event. Coordinating with Commissioner Kieren Perrow and our events team across logistics, we’re very excited to announce that the women’s Final of the OK Fiji Pro will be held Sunday morning in projected solid surf at Cloudbreak.”

“Jessi and I work really closely together to try and get everyone in great surf and that’s really important because the men and the women both want equal opportunity,” said WSL Commissioner, Kieren Perrow. “This is a really unique opportunity, we’re down to the Final and Jessi made a good call not to run when the conditions had deteriorated. This decision gives us the ability to put the women out in the Final, the pinnacle of the event, in incredible surf and go head-to-head in the waves that we come to Fiji for.”

Courtney Conlogue (USA) and Tatiana Weston-Webb (HAW) will battle for the event title in solid six-foot (10 foot faces) Cloudbreak in front of the world’s best male surfers as they await the commencement of Round 1.

Conlogue stormed her way to the Final by defeating reigning WSL Champion and No. 1 on the Jeep Leaderboard Tyler Wright (AUS) and defending event winner Johanne Defay (FRA).

“I’m really looking forward to what’s to come, it’s really exciting,” Conlogue said. “I’m so looking forward to this Final knowing that WSL is giving us the opportunity to wait for swell. This has never been done before and to allow us to showcase in good waves is going to be incredible and especially in a place like Fiji. To have a Final with Tatiana in swell is going to be incredible.”

Weston-Webb earned her first Final appearance of 2017 with a string of incredible victories that saw her take down two-time event winner Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS), 3X WSL Champion Carissa Moore (HAW) and 6X World Champion Stephanie Gilmore (AUS).

“It’s really taken a lot of self belief to get here and I’m so happy I made the Final,” said Weston-Webb. “I’m really excited that the WSL has chosen to give us a huge opportunity, surf some big waves and explore possibilities. It’s definitely going to be exciting and I hope to really put on a show for everyone.”

Surfline, official forecaster for the event, are calling for:

Minor/flat surf prevails Friday. New, long period SW swell builds through Saturday with overhead surf developing at Cloudbreak through the morning and even larger surf in the afternoon. That swell peaks Sunday, along with new, shorter to mid period SW swell for solid surf at Cloudbreak. A new, long period SW swell picks up on Monday to keep the surf strong, before fading through mid next week. More swell is on the radar in the long range. 

The event will be broadcast LIVE via WorldSurfLeague.com, the WSL app and on Facebook LIVE via the WSL’s Facebook page.