Every competitive surfing star dreams of wearing the coveted yellow jersey. Every season, the title of World Champion is the ultimate prize for the best surfers that compete in the World Surf League (WSL) contests. The current jersey holder is the Brazilian surfer Filipe Toledo, although there are still WSL events left this season, so the race is far from over. Australian surfer Ethan Ewing has had a wildly inconsistent 2023 WSL season thus far. He has experienced it all, from first-round byes to being on the podium at major competitions. But his pursuit of the yellow jersey continues.
At Jeffrey’s Bay, Ethan Ewing was sighted on a surf pool days before the Corona Open J-Bay. Why is the surfer in the pool, you ask? He was, without a doubt, preparing for the big competition. Footage of him doing many feats on the waves has gone viral on social media, and he seems to be on a mission to win his first WSL world championship.
The Aussie surfing star’s training regime
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Ethan Ewing is a beast on the waves, whether they are man-made or natural, much as kangaroos are on the plains of Australia. The surfer in the Instagram video walks up to the wave pool and rides one. Ewing does a trick on the same wave and rides it again in short order. Soon after, on the same wave, he does yet another feat. By the time he reaches the following wave, the Australian has completed a horizontal flip that would leave any of his fans in awe.
The footage, however, does not yet show all of the Australian star’s impressive abilities. In the same video, Ethan Ewing rides a barrel and effortlessly floats through it, wetting his hair as he exits the obstacle. A second horizontal flip in the wave pool is only the beginning for Ewing. In many instances, he floats toward the waves. After a while of doing the identical moves as at the beginning of the Instagram reel, Ewing does an aerial maneuver by jumping off the waves. The surfer also signs an autograph for a fan on their surfboard after their training session.
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The surfer has performed every maneuver he is capable of in preparation for the WSL tournament in South Africa, where he hopes to get high scores that will carry over to the championship finals.
A man on a mission
Australian surfer Ethan Ewing has had a wild 2023 World Surf League season. Before his humiliating loss against Liam O’Brien at the Billabong Pro Pipeline, the surfer had never been eliminated so early in a WSL competition. A few tournaments later, he bested fellow Australian surfer Ryan Callinan by 3.50 points to win the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach.
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The Australian surfer has been third in the Surf Ranch Pro and second at the VIVO Rio Pro after his Rip Curl Pro victory. Although he is now ranked third in the world and more than 4,000 points behind the second-place surfer, surfing is a dynamic sport in which rankings may change after each event.
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