Surfing champion John John Florence returns for Vans Triple Crown

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WSL / CESTARI

As the crowd crammed the stage, John John Florence celebrated his World Surf League victory during the Rip Curl Pro Portugal in October.

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Picture John John Florence in the distant future looking back with warm and fuzzy feelings about what the year 2016 meant to him.

Give it any adjective you want — incredible, astounding, breathtaking — and it would not fit the definition of hyperbole.

And the year is not over yet. The newly crowned World Surf League champion, who — in case you forgot — also won the Eddie Aikau big-wave contest in massive 60-foot-plus wave faces at Waimea Bay in February, is back home in Haleiwa gearing up for the three season-ending contests also known as the Vans Triple Crown on Oahu’s North Shore.

Unlike most past world surfing champions who wrap up their titles here in December, Florence got his done last month in Portugal. The pressure is off and there should be nothing holding back the 24-year-old from putting an exclamation point — or three — on 2016.

Sure, Florence hoisted the trophy in front of the fans in Europe, but he has yet to be honored in Hawaii for that accomplishment. No doubt, the fans here will give him a hearty welcome and will be pulling for him to seize the moment in all three events — the Hawaiian Pro at Alii Beach Park in Haleiwa, the Vans World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach and the Billabong Pipe Masters at Ehukai Beach.

Today, the holding period starts for the Hawaiian Pro, and the forecast on the Vans Triple Crown website Thursday called for a diminishing swell throughout this afternoon. If the contest is not called on this morning, a new swell is expected to build Sunday, with solid double- to near-triple-overhead conditions all of Monday.

Florence is a two-time winner of the Triple Crown trophy (2011 and 2013), which is given to the top surfer in the three events combined, and he has an event win in the World Cup of Surfing (2011). He has never won the Hawaiian Pro or the Pipe Masters, the latter of which would be a fine addition to his quiver of triumphs.

The best surfers on the planet will be hunting for that Triple Crown, including 11-time world champion Kelly Slater (No. 9 in the world rankings), defending Hawaiian Pro champion Wade Carmichael, 2015 world champion Adriano de Souza (No. 7), Jordy Smith (No. 3) and Matt Wilkinson (No. 4).

In addition to Florence, three of Hawaii’s other surfers on the world championship tour — Sebastian Zietz (No. 11 in the world rankings), Keanu Asing (No. 23) and Dusty Payne (No. 26) — are in the Hawaiian Pro field, as is the North Shore’s Mason Ho, who won the HIC Pro (Triple Crown qualifier) at Sunset Beach last week, Ezekiel Lau (No. 11 on the lower-tiered qualifying series tour) and big-name power surfers Bruce Irons, Jamie O’Brien and Sunny Garcia.

Not all of the WSL’s Top 34 world tour surfers will be in the Hawaiian Pro or the Vans World Cup (which are not world championship tour contests), but most will be in the Pipe Masters, which is the tour’s finale.

More than a handful of surfers are still trying to clinch spots for next year’s Top 34. The WSL’s top 22 from 2016 will join the top 10 from the qualifying series and two wild cards on the 2017 championship tour.