Surfing: West Australian hippie Jack Robinson wins Pipeline Masters

A West Australian hippie with a fierce competitive streak has won the Pipeline Masters to announce himself as the man to beat for the world title and gold at the Paris Olympics.

Jack Robinson celebrates his victory in the Pipeline Masters at Oahu, in Hawaii. Picture: Tony Heff/World Surf League

A West Australian hippie with a fierce competitive streak has won the Pipeline Masters to announce himself as the man to beat for the world title and next year’s surfing gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

Riding a yellow flash of a board inspired by the hi-vis paint jobs preferred by Joel Parkinson and Taj Burrow last decade, 25-year-old Jack Robinson, who cut his teeth and a whole lot of skin on the reef at Margaret River and ­remote regions of WA as a youngster, defeated Italian Leo Fioravanti to get his name on the most prestigious honour board in the sport.

As we was chaired up the beach, a voice from somewhere shouted, “Here’s to ya, Mr ­Robinson!”

He’s a deeply thoughtful and spiritual young bloke. Forever ­expressing gratitude and appreciation for the smallest things. Invariably barefoot. For the most formal occasions he might find a pair of flip-flops. He meditates like mad. During a pressure-packed final, he spread his arms wide, closed his eyes and pointed his face at the sky as if it was the closing scene in Titanic. But such is his eagerness to win any sort of contest, he does breathing exercises before a big roll of the dice in a game of Yahtzee. Gotta be a good soul … and gotta win.

The real proof of his character is this. The hardcore locals on the North Shore of Oahu rarely warm to young foreigners. And yet they adore Robinson. He’s been surfing there since he was a teenager, staying for months at a time, and he’s never shown them anything but respect.

He said at the presentation ceremony: “This is so special. I’ve dreamt of this for a long time. You never know with this beach. You just never know with her. I’m just so grateful. That’s one of the biggest things. Every time I was paddling out there, I was thinking, ‘This wave has hurt me over the years. This wave has given me a lot of good things, too.’ I’m just super-grateful to be in one piece and to be in the moment and to be able to do this.”

Robinson added: “It’s not just the wave here that’s special. It’s the people. It’s an honour, man. Seriously. To have come here for so long, maybe 15 years. I have so many friends here. Just the people who support me with their good mana, their good energy. Man, there’s no words for this. Just ­respect.”

‘It’s an honour’: Robinson competes on the final day of the Billabong Pro Pipeline. Picture: AFP

Robinson sat on the shore ­before his final, legs crossed, eyes closed, breathily heavily through his nose because apparently that’s the way to get more oxygen to your brain. Snorting like a bull, there was a whole lot of oxygen going in and out. This wasn’t classic Pipe, small and mushy, but a win’s a win. Robinson won by 9.17 points to 7.47, proving his noted big-wave mastery was now complemented by enough lightning speed and snappy little turns to succeed in lesser waves. The Olympics will be held at a place right up his alley, the big dangerous reef of Teahupo’o off Tahiti. His only weakness there might be small swell … but he’s just won Pipe in small swell … so the problem no longer exists.

He’s the World No. 1 ahead of next week’s World Surf League contest at Sunset Beach. “What a way to start the year. It’s going to be a long road,” he said of the world title race. “I’m just getting the legs ready to run that road. I’m going to try to go all the way and yeah, one by one.”

Hawaiian Carissa Moore beat Australia’s Tyler Wright by 11 points to 10 in the women’s final, revealing her anguish at losing her world crown to Stephanie Gilmore last year. Moore completely dominated the regular tour before being ambushed by Australia’s eight-time champion in the WSL’s controversial one-day shootout in California.

“The process is very raw, I’m not going to lie,” Moore said. “I was angry. It’s not like I picked myself up five minutes later and was like, OK, let’s go. I lost the world title after being in the lead all season. I got the rug swept from underneath me. It took me, I would say, a solid month to get over that one. You’re grieving over this.”

Gilmore agrees with Moore. She thinks the world championship should be decided by the old formula of accumulating points from all sorts of waves, winds, tides, peaks, valleys, reefs, sandbars, points and countries throughout the year. There’s no doubt the best overall surfer last year was Moore and yet she finished empty-handed.

“A big part of me still thinks the world champion should be crowned over different conditions,” Gilmore said. “Surfing is about being able to compete in all different kinds of waves and being successful all through the year.”