Surf champ John John Florence gears up for Billabong Pipe Masters

Early Monday, the eve of the Pipe Masters contest, a new northwest swell rolled 6- to 8-foot surf into Banzai Pipeline on Oahu’s North Shore, and Californian Kolohe Andino, ranked fifth on the World Surf League Championship Tour, paddled out in the pre-dawn dark.

“I was the second one out, to try and get a wave (without waiting) behind 20 Pipe locals,” said a happy-sounding Andino, adding that he got a couple of waves.

“There were really good waves,” said two-time world champion John John Florence, who grew up and still lives above the beach overlooking the fabled break and who won a berth — alongside Andino, Hawaii’s Carissa Moore and Florida-born Caroline Marks — on the U.S. team slated to compete in the first-ever Olympic surf event at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games.

The Olympics, however, were postponed until summer due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the 2020 WSL pro tour was canceled, returning now with some big changes. The 2021 tour is kicking off this month in Hawaii, where the season usually concludes, with the Billabong Pipe Masters by Hydroflask for the men and the Maui Pro by Roxy for the women at Honolua Bay, where competition started Monday. Stop No. 2 will be the Sunset Pro at Oahu’s Sunset Beach in January.

“It’s been great for me,” said Florence, 28, of the yearlong break from the tour, where he has won seven career events but not, as yet, the Pipe Masters, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. “It’s allowed me to get my knee back to 100% (after injuries knocked him off the tour in 2018 and 2019), not to mention getting all the time to spend with family has been amazing.”

Asked whether growing up at Pipeline helped or hindered him in the Pipe Masters event, “my brother and I were just talking about how when you live here, during a free surf (session), you tend to wait on the outside for really good, big waves,” Florence said, adding that nonlocals tend to “wait a little more on the inside for medium-size waves,” which come more frequently.

During an event heat, “that can hinder us because we sit and wait too long,” said Florence, who in 2016 won the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational at Waimea Bay.

Another change this season: Pipe Masters and other WSL events have been designed to be viewed virtually, not in person.

While Ehukai Beach Park and the beach fronting it will remain open to the public during the Pipe Masters, “this virtual event is covered under a filming permit, where certain beach areas will be restricted for public access as a result of strict COVID-19 protocols,” said Nathan Serota, spokesman for the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation.

“The public will be able to traverse around (restricted) areas with designated access routes,” Serota said, noting that there will be no announcement booth, storyboards or on-site vendors, and beachgoers will need to follow the city’s mask-wearing and limited-gathering rules.

For viewers, Florence shared some tips on assessing surfers’ performances beyond the barrel ride.

“One of the key things is where people take off,” he said. “Some people ride a little bit bigger board and get in really early, and some sit really far under the lip, (taking) a late drop, making an adjustment to be deep in the barrel, and then coming out and looking for a really big air section.”

Brazilians Gabriel (Medina, a Pipe Masters winner and two-time world champ) and Italo (Ferreira, who won the world championship and the Pipe Masters in 2019) “have done a good job moving the sport in that direction,” Florence added.

The biggest threats he faced, Florence added, were “Gabriel — he’s such a good surfer (at Pipe) — and (11-time world champ Kelly) Slater — you can never count him out.”

Facing his next Pipe Masters, he found his year off “definitely gave me perspective on where my mind is at with my competitive career,” Florence said, saying his goal now was not so much about chasing world titles as to live in the moment and enjoy the experience of competition.

“It’s a really good feeling to be able to let go when you have all this pressure, and surf your best in that heat,” he said. ”It feels pretty free to be able to focus and forget about everything else.”

In a game-changing shift this season, WSL has announced the women’s and men’s world championships will be decided in one day at their tours’ final event, a one-day surf-off among the five surfers who have accumulated the most points out of the 11 tour events.

Previously, the surfer who collected the most points throughout the tour won the title, regardless of who won the final event.

“I really love the change,” Florence said. “I think it’s going to be one of the most exciting events in surfing we’ve had so far.”

The final event for both men and women will be held in September at Trestles in Southern California.

The Pipe Masters holding period runs today through Dec. 20. For more information, visit worldsurfleague.com.