Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Stephanie Gilmore will lean on “10,000 hours” of surfing at Snapper Rocks when the world tour returns to her home break after a seven-year absence.
The storied Gold Coast leg was scrapped as part of a remodelled Championship Tour season after the 2019 event.
It was then shifted to Burleigh Heads on a week’s notice last year when a cyclone destroyed the wave and scuppered its heralded return.
Eight-time world champion Gilmore, 38, is back on tour after a two-year absence and will face 18-year-old Canadian sensation Erin Brooks in a knock-out first round heat when competition begins on Friday in terrific conditions.
A swell in excess of two metres is expected to build, with competition more than likely to continue on the weekend and finish as early as Tuesday.
Gilmore, a six-time winner at Snapper, has lost both her first-round heats in a sobering return to the top-flight.
“I saw Erin at Bells Beach (for the season-opener) and she was pointing at 2007 when I won and said ‘I was born that year’,” she smiled after Thursday’s practice day.
“She’s an incredible athlete and the future of the sport.
“My goal is to evolve my surfing and rattle some of the groms.
“I want to push myself, they’re progressing at an incredible rate but the pressure’s on; I’ve got to do well because I haven’t shown up yet this season.”
Gilmore grew up surfing the popular right-hand break at Coolangatta and said much had changed since she won her first world title, as a 19-year-old in 2007.
“This new generation is athletes becoming surfers, where in the past you’re a surfer (first),” she said.
“They’re so focused on gym work and stuff around it to become a professional athlete.
“So there’s a shift, but that’s why you’re seeing new levels from everything.
“That ceiling is being broken often, particularly the women.”
Gilmore, in front of an adoring home crowd, will draw on all of her surfing IQ on Friday.
“I used to look at the lifeguard tower and think, imagine if I could live there’,” she said.
“I spent 10,000 hours of my life surfing here and when you’re competing, the crowd is knee deep in the water with you.
“Burleigh (last year) was awesome but this is a superior wave, it’s the perfect wave.”
George Pittar arrives at the tour’s third stop in second spot – the highest-ranked Australian male or female – after claiming a maiden win at Margaret River.
Defending world champion Molly Picklum sits third while Isabella Nichols, in sixth, is the only other Australian in the top 10 as part of a cut-throat new competition structure that features a sudden death first round.
