Sally Fitzgibbons earns a wild card back in to the Word Surf League tour after brutal cut

 A week after a shocking career blow Sally Fitzgibbons has been given a stunning lifeline.

Sally Fitzgibbons has been given a World Surf League wildcard for 2023. (Photo by Ed Sloane/World Surf League)

Olympian Sally Fitzgibbons was “blown away” after getting a World Surf League reprieve and will return to the main tour as a wildcard for the first half of the 2023 season.

She could even make it back this year.

Fitzgibbons, 31, was among the most high-profile casualties of the controversial mid-season cut when she lost at the Margaret River Pro last week, losing her spot on the main tour, which was cut to just 10 female competitors, for the first time in 14 years.

“I’m just blown away. You don’t get many second chances,” Fitzgibbons said

“I guess all those years of service, just trying my heart out, it’s cool to have my body of work seen.

“It brings a tear to my eye, it’s been an emotional week.

“To be back where I really want to put myself fin the best position to improve my surfing, it definitely lines up with my goal.”

She declared she would fight her way back and powered through to the quarter-finals at the second-tier Gold Coast Pro this week, surfing with stitches in her head after a weekend accident.

Just before her round of 16 heat, and on her father’s birthday, the WSL announced Fitzgibbons would be one of two wildcard winners for 2023 giving her direct entry into the first five events, including Pipeline and Bells Beach, before the mid-season cut next year.

But she will also be the first replacement for the rest of this year should any of the remaining competitors pull out of any of the six remaining events on the 2022 calendar.

But fellow Olympian Owen Wright, who also failed to make the mid-season cut, didn’t receive one of the two wildcards given to the male surfers, with one going to three-time world champion Gabriel Medina

The WSL wildcards are selected following applications from athletes and take in to account competitive performance, rankings, and event results.

Fitzgibbons is a three-time runner-up for the world title and wore the green and gold for Australia at the Tokyo Olympics when surfing was introduced for the first time.

Tyler Wright in action on the Gold Coast (Photo by Andrew Shield/World Surf League)

On Monday Owen Wright bowed out of the Gold Coast event by the narrowest of margins, leaving the Aussie Olympian’s professional surfing career at a crossroads.

After the Margaret River Pro earlier this month, Wright fell victim to the World Surf League’s controversial mid-season cut, which has been introduced this year and dramatically reduces the field on the championship tour.

The relegation left 32-year-old Wright contemplating his future in the sport but he eventually decided to suit up for the Gold Coast Pro on the second-tier challenger tour.

Wright was eliminated from that event on Monday in the most heartbreaking of circumstances, missing out on advancing to the third round by 0.03 points.

Owen Wright won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics. Picture: Olivier Morin - Pool/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Gold Coast crowds got their last glimpse of Kelly Slater on Monday. The 50-year-old veteran finished third in his heat in the round of 48 and was eliminated.

He was outdone by Italian Leonardo Fioravanti and fellow American Cam Richards, neither of whom were born when Slater won his first world title.

Thanks largely to his memorable win at this year’s Pipeline, Slater avoided relegation from the championship tour and had been surfing on the Gold Coast for fun.

Kelly Slater bowed out. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker