We just want to dedicate this piece to the life and legacy of the legend that was Midget Farrelly, the first champion of Australian professional surfing (and so much more).

Who doesn’t love a Tahiti contest? And with Medina and John John breathing down Wilko’s yellow-jersey’d neck, it’s got the makings of a great event. Except for the predicted…

Conditions

I could talk about big Teahupo’o, and playful Teahupo’o, and all the ways in which it can impact team selections, but in truth the forecast is pretty rubbish. Teams selected on the basis of surfers’ big-wave nous will struggle to see any advantage during the first few rounds (at least). We can always hope for some improved forecast conditions towards the end of the month, but it’s all speculative at this point. What’s definite though is that the conditions will be tricky if they are similar to those of the trials. Instead of selecting a team of Tahiti hell-men, consider surfers with good wave selection, patience and, of course, a solid left-hand reef game.

As far as a history of success goes, we’ve made up a new table on our sortable data page that shows the results of 16 surfers over the past 4 Tahiti Pro events. Check it out and see who has been the most consistent at this event over the past few years (bottom of page). For those too lazy to jump between tabs, there is a quick overview of the past few years from R5 onwards below (via aspwedge.com).

Based on the forecast, the break features and the surfers’ past results at this event, here are our nominations for strong ‘conditions’ surfers for this event:

Gabriel Medina

Gabriel would have been in this list regardless of the conditions; he’s performed well out here in all shapes and sizes. Look at the forecast though, and Medina starts looking virtually mandatory: he has the highest EATP, 3^rd highest EAHS, and second highest AHS for 1-4’, 4-6’, lefts and reefs. Just pick him already.

John John Florence

John John tops the EAHS here, and ranks 4^th for reefs overall. He’s 5^th for 1-4’ and 6^th for 4-6’ conditions. He has proven his potential out here and nobody is questioning his tube-riding skills. JJF will be popular, but he’s hard to leave out.

Kelly Slater

Kelly ranks second in EAHS and EATP, and he’s been in 2 of the last 3 finals here. He also has the top AHS for lefts AND reef breaks, so he is the stand-out amongst the Tier B surfers. The only caveat is his ranking for 1-4’ conditions, which has him right down in the middle of the field. Hopefully 4’ Tahiti proves more inspiring for the champ than 4’ Brazil…

Jeremy Flores

Jeremy came out as the most successful surfer at this event through analysing the history of his results, with a contest average only slightly below 3^rd place overall. Flores ranks 3^rd in reef breaks, 4^th in the EAHS and 6^th in 1-4’ surf. All great numbers for a Tier C surfer.

Bruno Santos

While it hasn’t factored into our stats, you can’t ignore his 2008 win. Couple this with his 5^th round result last year – and the fact that they were both from a super-low seeding position – and you have a fairly solid track record at this event. The WSL did a piece on him as a contender too, for those interested. It’s also worth noting that there has been a change of seeding, meaning Bruno now surfs against Wilko instead of JJF.

Conditions Warnings

Jordy Smith

Jordy ranks in the high 20s for reef breaks and 30^th for lefts. Just soak that up for a second. He has the 2^nd lowest EATP AND EAHS for those who have surfed the event. He ranks OK for 1-4’ and 4-6’ conditions, but the data says this is not the place to be holding on to Jordy.

Filipe Toledo

Filipe actually ranked below Jordy in the projected totals for this event by one place. He does have some excellent AHS stats for small waves, but there are too many better options in Tier B to make the risk worthwhile in our opinion. He could be a great sleeper if it’s truly small though…

Nat Young

Nat Young’s three-year history of 25^th, 13^th, 25^th at Tahiti surprised us. He has an OK EAHS of 14.09 – which puts him at 7^th – but there aren’t many other draw factors to Nat at this spot.

Adriano de Souza

Adriano has gone 13^th, 25^th, 25^th, 13^th at Tahiti recently, including a loss to Santos last year. Will they match up again? The numbers suggest that Bruno hopes so…

Form

Who’s carrying a bagful of swag into this contest? Who’s dragging their ego from contest to contest? Let’s check the form guide…

John John Florence

Given Mick’s absence, JJF has the best tour form coming off the JBay event. He also has the highest AHS for 2016, which suggests his surfing has been good across six events. His form in general has been up on previous years, and with an openly declared focus on winning the title, he looks very dangerous right now.

Gabriel Medina

Medina has gone 9^th, 3^rd, 1^st, and 5^th in the past four events. He has the second-highest AHS for 2016 and he won the only other event in left-hand reef breaks this year. His form is solid.

Josh Kerr

Josh started the year with a bit of a R3 curse, but he’s broken that with a 9^th at Fiji and a 3^rd at JBay. He is a solid tube-rider too.

Michel Bourez

OK, he hasn’t been setting the world on fire this year, but he’s definitely turned down the suck recently, with three 9^th places in the last 3 events. He is currently ranked 8^th in the world.

Bruno Santos

Bruno earned his place in this event the hard way; struggling through the trials in conditions that bear an uncanny resemblance to those forecast. He had to beat former Tahiti Pro finalist Nathan Hedge to win as well.

Form Warnings

Kai Otton

We like Kai at this event. Hell, we just like Kai period. We can’t ignore his poor form this year though. If he does well here, it will be against the trend for 2016.

Jeremy Flores

See above, basically.

Ryan Callinan

We’d love to see Ry shake off whatever shackles are holding him back and really show the world what he’s capable of. We’d like that a lot. We’re not suggesting you count on it though; that’s up to you.

Heat Draw

While much less important when compared to conditions and form, the draw should still be a partial consideration. Having 3 surfers in a R1 heat, or even 2 surfers facing off in R2, is bad form. The seeding system is now based 100% on the 2016 rankings, making it much easier to estimate seedings and substitutions in the case of injury withdrawals.

If you want to play around with heat win and R2 possibilities, we recommend wslbracket.com as a fun way of predicting possible result match-ups. Be aware though that a single change from your projections can alter the following round entirely.

Here’s what happened when we put our projections through R1:

Sleeper Picks

We like to offer a few suggestions that may not be on everyone’s radar. Any success that involves deviating from the popular vote will provide a huge advantage for players willing to take the risk. Since the % owned feature has been removed from the WSL game and the FS numbers are invisible until lock-out, we are simply predicting who will be low in the popularity stakes.

Top

Any deviation from either one or both of Medina/JJF in the top 8 will be a bit of a sleeper at this event. That said, we think that Italo offers the most as an alternative to these big two. We were going to suggest Wilko, but with Bruno reseeded we think he could be slightly more of a risk.

Mids

Filipe could be a tempting risk here, given the forecast, but we think that Connor will be off everyone’s radar and his experience in left-hand reefs could be under-valued here.

Low

Jadson Andre could make a few heats out here, and he’ll probably be on far fewer teams than Flores, Kai, Santos and Callinan if you’re looking for a POD.

Teams

WSL surf-stats team

Our own personal team has to offer some differences to the numbers team, so sometimes we make changes and take risks in the name of greater balance. We’re taking small risks with Wiggolly and Kerr, staying with favourites Flores, Kelly, Gabe and John, and we are giving our Notes From the Line-Up interviewee his fantasy payment with a spot in the squad (and a spot as his picture, apparently).

WSL numbers team

It’s surprising how much the projections were split between the Tier A and Tier C surfers. Seabass and Kolohe slipped in, despite being ranked 11^th and 13^th respectably. It’s our only team without any clashes in R1 though, so that’s a bonus.

Fantasy Surfer surf-stats team

This is a pretty conservative team overall. It’s 50% Brazilian, as we’re taking a punt on Jadson. We would have preferred Kerr over Parko, but were 250K short.

Fantasy Surfer numbers team

This team has all of the top 8 predicted surfers from our projections table; a first for 2016. It says that we have $6M spare, but if you discount the lower team prices for JJF, Slater and Medina, it works out at exactly $50M. Perfect.

The Outliers

For each event in 2016, we will produce a list of ‘outliers’ that represent some kind of anomaly within our selection analyses. Maybe there are factors that a spreadsheet can’t detect, maybe all of the numbers point a god-awful result at this event, or maybe their recent form simply contradicts their previous averages.

Here are our outliers for Tahiti:

Wildcards

This is the first event this year where I can honestly say that I consider both of the locals a threat (maybe Margies too, but that is just a disappointing memory).

Kelly Slater / Joel Parkinson / John John Florence

These guys are at the top of the pecking order when it comes the big ‘Chopes’, but how much interest they can generate when it’s small, side-shore and pinching at the end remains to be seen.

Wilko

We keep saying this, but Wilko is defying history this year. That said, his history hasn’t been amazing at this event.

Julian

We’ve been quiet on Julian this contest, but he just surfs so well when he clicks. If you can ignore his streaky past, he could just repay your faith.

Surf-stats Clubhouses

Now that you know the team break-downs, it’s time for you to create a team that will hold our selections to account. Sign up to our WSL Surf-Stats group (password – SS) or the Fantasy Surfer Surf-Stats clubhouse (password – SS) and challenge yourself against us and our readers. We will give a shout-out to each winner and analyse their team.

As always, feel free to comment or leave your own team selections below.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for updates and news.