John John Florence compared the power of the waves in Rio de Janeiro to his native island of Hawaii, which put him in the comfort zone to take out the Oi Rio Pro.

The North Shore’s prodigal son looked at home in the Brazilian beach break from the very start of the competition, dismantling pretty much every wave he surfed with massive hacks that drew massive cheers from the feverous Brazilian crowd.

Florence notched his third career WSL event win, two of which have come at the Rio Pro and coming after his Eddie win back in February. The win comes at a good time for the Hawaiian after two straight round three exits on the Australian leg of the tour.

John John eliminated his fellow Hawaiian Dusty Payne in the quarter finals and reigning World Champion Adriano de Souza in the semi-finals before surfing a near-perfect heat in the final against Australian youngster Jack Freestone. John John pretty much had the win wrapped up within the first 10 minutes after combo-ing Freestone with a 18.97.

The win catapulted Florence from 13th to 3rd in the WSL rankings, putting the 23-year-old in the right back in the World Title race, with him saying:

“Obviously I want to try to win a World Title, but I am going to take it heat by heat, event by event, hopefully I will come out on top, but we will see. The waves have been challenging and everyone has been surfing so well, so I am stoked to be here and win this event.”

We can’t wait for the next event as it heads to Fiji for the fifth event of the season. The waiting period is open from June 5-17.

Watch the highlights from the final below and if you want to surf some warm waters like John John we offer fantastic surf camps to beautiful and wave rich locations such as France, Morocco, Canary Islands, Indonesia, Barbados and many more locations.



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Photo by: Dane Siestas