Under a new format introduced several months ago, the men and women ranked in the top five at the end of the WSL season qualified for the one-day tournament at San Clemente’s Lower Trestles, a popular west coast surfing destination where high-performance waves break over a cobblestone bottom, to decide the world champions. The shark sighting added to the intensity of what was already a historic day in the world of surfing. “They’re probably looking for my phone number just to light me up,” Fanning said of the finalists as they were lifted out of the water. Mick Fanning, the retired Australian three-time world champion, happened to be in the commentary booth alongside Kelly Slater at the time and jokingly recalled his own harrowing encounter with shark during a 2015 tour competition at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa. The event was put on hold with 18 minutes left in the match as tour officials scrambled to clear the line-up and ensure that athletes were out of harm’s way. “A shark has breached the side of the line-up and it’s about six to eight foot so we’re going to search the line-up and make sure it’s gone,” World Surf League (WSL) head of competition Jessie Miley-Dyer said during the live broadcast of the WSL Rip Curl Finals at Lower Trestles, California. It was during Tuesday’s championship match between world No 1 Gabriel Medina and fellow Brazilian Filipe Toledo that a six to eight foot shark was spotted breaching the competition area.
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