Stephanie Gilmore on mission in Maui to win seventh world surfing crown
Any world title is “super special” but Stephanie Gilmore has admitted she didn’t win her last one the way she wanted.
Any world title is “super special” but Stephanie Gilmore has admitted she didn’t win her last one the way she wanted.
The Australian surfer says the circumstances of her world championship victory at the Maui Pro in 2014 still plays on her mind all these years later.
Gilmore is in Hawaii preparing for the 2018 finale to the season where she can secure a seventh world crown to equal surf legend Layne Beachley’s long-standing women’s record.
Four years ago Gilmore secured her sixth world crown in eight attempts at the Maui Pro despite spending most of the day on the beach.
Both Gilmore’s closest rival Sally Fitzgibbons and outsider Tyler Wright had the ability to win the world crown after Gilmore’s early defeat at the tournament.
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But Fitzgibbons was then knocked out in the quarter-finals and Wright was beaten by American Carissa Moore in the final, results which delivered Gilmore her sixth the world crown.
“I want to do it this time by winning, not by someone else loosing,” Gilmore told The Daily Telegraph.
“That, the way it went down, has always played on my mind.”
Gilmore’s only rival for the 2018 world title in Hawaii next week is American Lakey Peterson.
Gilmore will win the world title if she finishes third or better at the world tour finale she has won three time previously.
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If she bows out in fifth place, Peterson would have to win the event overall to force the first ever women’s surf-off in history.
First up for Gilmore at the Maui Pro is dangerous American Sage Erickson and local Alana Blanchard.
Erickson needs a strong result in Maui to requalify for next year’s tour.
Peterson is against two locals in round one in Malia Manuel and Zoe McDougall
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