The first-ever Rip Curl WSL Finals are coming to California.

Starting today, surfing’s top competitors will descend upon Lower Trestles, San Clemente to crown a WSL champion. For the first time in WSL history, the men’s and women’s winners will be named on the same day in an unprecedented winner-takes-all event.

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the Finals:

The format

The 2021 Championships will take place in California in a one-day event between Sept. 9 and Sept. 17, dependent on conditions.

Five surfers will participate in the title contest based on the points they accrue on the Championship Tour. The top six results (out of eight events) decide the final WSL leaderboard rankings.

The competition has a bracket structure, with World No. 1 Carissa Moore awarded an automatic bid to the Title Match. The four other surfers will go head-to-head, moving up through the WSL bracket. Match 1 will feature fourth-ranked Stephanie Gilmore and fifth-ranked Johanne Defay, with the winner moving on to face World No. 3 Sally Fitzgibbons. The champion of Match 2 will then take on No. 2 Tatiana Weston-Webb in Match 3. All head-to-heads will feature a traditional heat format.

The surfers

Carissa Moore: As the World No. 1, Moore comes into the WSL Finals having already secured her place in the Title Match. The Hawaii native has dominated surfing over the last decade, surging to the top of the sport in 2011 when she became the youngest person to win the surfing title at 18 years old. Since then, she has taken home a total of four World Championships, most recently clinching the first-ever Olympic surfing gold medal at the Tokyo Games. Moore boasts an impressive 14.48 average heat score and 23 heat wins, making her the favorite in Trestles.

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Tatiana Weston-Webb: Weston-Webb has had a consistent 2021 season, winning the Boost Mobile Margaret River Pro presented by Corona back in May. Named WSL Rookie of the Year in 2015, Weston-Webb has climbed the WSL rankings since her debut on the Championship Tour. Weston-Webb, who previously topped out at No. 6 in 2019, is now No. 2 heading into the Finals. The 25-year-old could make history in California, competing to become the first Brazilian woman to win a World Title.

Sally Fitzgibbons: Fitzgibbons has been a top competitor in surfing since exploding onto the scene in 2009 as the WSL Rookie of the Year. The Australian reached a career-high ranking of World No. 1 in 2019 after winning in Rio. After over a decade in the sport, Fitzgibbons comes to the WSL Finals looking for her first-ever World Championship.

Stephanie Gilmore: Gilmore is a surfing legend, considered to be one of the greatest competitors in the sport’s history. The 33-year-old burst onto the scene in 2007, becoming the first surfer, male or female, to win Rookie of the Year and a World Championship in the same season. Gilmore has won seven World Titles, most recently lifting the WSL trophy in 2018. In 2010, the Australian was inducted into the Surfing Hall of Fame, solidifying her place in the sport’s history. Gilmore will look to shatter a new record in California, becoming the first woman to win eight World Championships.

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Johanne Defay: Defay has consistently finished in the Top 10 since her WSL tour debut, reaching No. 5 in 2016 and 2018. The French surfer moved all the way up to No. 2 in the rankings during the 2021 season after winning the Surf Ranch Pro title. The 27-year-old now has a chance to make history at the WSL Finals as the first European woman to take the World Title.

How to watch

The Rip Curl WSL Finals will stream on WorldSurfLeague.com and YouTube between Sept. 9 and Sep. 17, with the actual day of competition determined by conditions.

The NWSL has made a decision, as the league officially moves forward with its new "High Impact Player" rule despite stated opposition from the players union.

Announced last week, the rule change allows clubs to exceed to the NWSL salary cap by up to $1 million to attract or retain players that meet one of eight qualifying metrics set by the league.

Those metrics include major media award rankings like the 30-player Ballon d'Or shortlist and ESPN FC's Top 50 Football Players, as well as marketing power, top USWNT minutes, and end-of-year NWSL awards.

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Developed with Washington Spirit superstar — and current free agent — Trinity Rodman and her potential contract in mind, the "High Impact Player" rule will not go into effect until July 1st, 2026.

Meanwhile, the NWSLPA has spoken out against the mechanism, proposing instead to up the salary cap by $1 million without league-imposed spending regulations.

"Under federal labor law, changes to compensation under the salary cap are a mandatory subject of bargaining — not a matter of unilateral discretion," the union wrote on Wednesday.

Additionally, per The Athletic, NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke expressed concerns that the rule ties top athlete pay, in part, to player valuations in third party publications — a move that externally defines who a club can consider "high impact."

Led by six Kansas City athletes and five from Gotham FC, just 27 current NWSL players across 10 of the 16 clubs in the expanded 2026 season meet the new HIP qualifying criteria — though all teams could use the mechanism to attract a new athlete to the league.

In a growing global market, the NWSL could be falling into a trap of half-measures, as the union pushes back with league parity potentially on the line.

The Kansas City Current have apparently found a new manager, with ESPN reporting last week that the 2025 NWSL Shield-winners will bring on former MLS head coach Chris Armas to lead the team in 2026.

Armas built his career in the MLS, coaching the New York Red Bulls from 2018 to 2020 before taking over Toronto FC in 2021, then spending the last three years heading up the Colorado Rapids.

The ex-USMNT player also has experience in the women's game at the college level, leading the Division II Adelphi University women's soccer team from 2011 to 2014.

Despite their many victories in 2025, the Current found themselves without a coach after third-year boss Vlatko Andonovski moved into a sporting director role with the club in November.

ESPN reported that Kansas City chose Armas over internal candidates like assistants Milan Ivanovic and ex-Angel City and Gotham manager Freya Coombe.

"I want my staff and people I've worked with to become successful coaches. These are things I'm very passionate about and want to be able to execute," Andonovski told ESPN last month.

Armas would be the first former MLS coach to make the leap to the NWSL, with the winds of change in Kansas City blowing stronger than anticipated.

With the 2026 Winter Olympics fast approaching, US skiing icon Mikaela Shiffrin has started the 2025/26 FIS World Cup cycle in top form — particularly in her favored slalom event.

Closing out last season with a victory, Shiffrin is currently on a multi-event winning streak, earning her sixth straight slalom title in Semmering, Austria, on Sunday.

"It was a really hard day today, tough conditions, a really big fight, and the pressure's on… I did my best, best possible run," Shiffrin said afterwards.

Momentum is on her side, with Shiffrin set to enter the 2026 Winter Games in Italy as the winningest skier in World Cup history, surpassing Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark's 86 wins in March 2023 and becoming the first skier to reach 100 World Cup victories earlier this year.

Sunday's race marked the 30-year-old's 106th career World Cup title, with Shiffrin looking to add to her ever-growing historic record with three more slalom events scheduled before the Olympic women's Alpine skiing events kick off on February 8th.

The 2014 Olympic slalom champion and 2018 Winter Games giant slalom gold medalist is aiming to return to the podium after failing to medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Shiffrin will likely hit the slopes again next weekend, when the women's FIS World Cup lands in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, for a giant slalom and slalom competition.

South Carolina basketball is stocking up, as top-ranked high school senior Jerzy Robinson announced her commitment to join the head coach Dawn Staley and the No. 3 Gamecocks last Tuesday.

"I chose South Carolina because I had a sense of peace when it came down to the decision for me," Robinson told ESPN. "When I visited South Carolina, I was already home. I was already valued there.... I felt like this was where I needed to be for the next four years."

A 6-foot-2 guard who averaged 27 points and 10.2 rebounds in her junior season at Los Angeles's Sierra Canyon High School, Robinson is now the highest-ranked Class of 2026 recruit heading to South Carolina — as well as the final Top 5 player to make a college decision after also visiting No. 1 UConn and No. 5 LSU.

Robinson first made a name for herself at the youth level, winning three gold medals and the 2025 U-19 FIBA World Cup with Team USA.

The young talent also inked one of the first-ever shoe sponsorships for a high school player, signing an NIL deal with Nike in November 2024.

"Basketball has always been my love and my passion," she said. "To see it pay off and the hard work and the hours pay off, in the sense of I get to play for one of the best universities in the country, I just have so much gratitude."