“I just got off the ski and let Filipe have it all”: Inside Julian Wilson’s Breakthrough Burleigh Pro Performance

Julian Wilson has just finished the eight hour drive from Burleigh to Newcastle with his wife and three children packed into his van when he answers my call. 

“Good, good, real good. Pretty energised to be honest,” he replies, when asked how he’s feeling. 

After four years in the pro surfing wilderness he’d taken the trip to the Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro on a whim, hoping to make it through the trials, earn a spot in the big dance, and see if he still had what it takes to compete at the elite level. Never in his wildest dreams did he envision what was about to happen. 

“It was insane, dude. Ten heats and multiple accommodation changes of plans. It turned into an epic holiday with the family up on the Goldy,” he laughs. 

I’d arrived on the headland at Burleigh just in time to see Julian take to the water for the final of the trials. After so much time out of the game, in which time he’d fathered two more children and started his own brand, Rivvia Projects, the former Australian world title runner-up says he had plenty of doubts. 

“I really wasn’t sure how I was going to get scored or if my level was high enough; if I could really battle with those guys…What are they gonna score me? What’s my level like? How rusty am I? So many questions,” he recalls. 

Two key moments told Julian that he still belonged.

“One was landing an air early in the final of the trials, which really made me believe I could make it to the main event. There was an unlock that happened there…that shifted the momentum in my favour. That was a big moment for me performance wise proving that I could do that stuff,” he says. 

The next came in the opening round of the main event where he drew current world number one, Italo Ferreira, and Burleigh-bred standout, Liam O’Brien. It was the hardest heat of the round and turned out to be a show stopper with all three surfers dropping huge totals. While Julian finished last, he could feel something building. 

“I needed a high seven or maybe an 8 and I just felt like I could get it, like I really felt like I could get it and I just needed the opportunity. That was the shift…and I was just stinging for the opportunity to get the man on man match up with Italo,” he says. 

First he had to overcome one of the hardest elimination round heats of the year against Jack Robinson, fresh off last-start win at Bells Beach, and Ryan Callinan’s replacement, Aussie Morgan Ciblic, who was on a similarly resurgent run to Julian, having emerged from years in the Challenger Series quagmire to claim third at Bells. Julian only found out Callinan had been replaced by Morgz moments before the heat. 

“I was just wigging out. Is R Cal gonna show up? Is he not?” he says. 

“Jack coming off winning Bells and Morgz coming off a third, they were two of the most in form surfers on the planet that day. And I didn’t even know I had Morgz in my heat till I grabbed my rashie,” he says.  

Related: Wildcard Julian Wilson Continues Rampage into Gold Coast Pro Quarterfinals

Julian took the heat out earning him the dream match up with Italo Ferreira in the Round of 32. He surfed a near perfect heat in tricky conditions to put the world number one to the sword, building pressure from the outset and continuing to up Ferreira’s requirement throughout. 

“I kept fanning the flame and getting more and more fired up,” he says. 

In the Round of 16 he took on the surprise packet of 2025, French giant killer, Marco Mignot, whose futuristic aerial attack has shades of Julian in his prime. Any sense that the Australian had lost something in his four your absence was dispelled at the 11 minute mark when he landed a gravity-defying slob straight air that is likely to live as long in highlight reels as his infamous alley oop to the moon in Portugal 11 years ago. 

“By that point in the event I’d really picked up on that they really wanted major moments on a wave, even if it was one major moment you could get excellent,” he says. 

“Marco was a super big threat because he’s found a way to find those majors in almost every stop so far this year. I knew it was most likely going to come down to that and I was just lucky I struck first and stomped a big straight air and set the tone in that heat,” he says. 

He capped the 8.5 for that effort with a 9.50 for a flurry of snaps and carved punctuated by a sick Burleigh barrel, earning him the highest combined total of the event (18.00) and a total shutout of his French opponent.

“I got off the ski and lucked into probably the best wave that came through the event just about. Went from the top to the bottom and had a barrel section. It was just the dream wave. I was tapping into something that I hadn’t tapped into in a very long time,” he says.  

By now the Australian public was catching on that something special was underway and by finals day pandemonium reigned on the rocks at Burleigh. In its original iteration, the Stubbies Pro at Burleigh crystallised the very concept of man-on-man competitive surfing as it pitted champion after champion against each other in classic crystal cylinders with thousands cheering on from the rocks a few meters away. The Burleigh Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro matched that, plus some. 

“I literally had half of Coolum trying to share my umbrella on the beach. Mates that I grew up with who’d never even been to an event were down there with their kids. It was just different. I had all my kids there, and people felt comfortable to rally around me and I started taking some big scalps, some crazy momentum got rolling and I almost steam rolled the whole event,” he says. 

Related: Can Julian Wilson Join The List Of Surfing’s Greatest Comebacks?

After making mince meat out of his old mate, Miguel Pupo, in the quarters, Wilson copped the full force of another surfer in red hot form, Kanoa Igarashi, in the semis. It was a Battle Royale with both surfers trading barrels, big punts, and savage carves to produce yet another show stopping heats; Wilson prevailing by less than a point. 

On the other side of he draw, another World Tour veteran was making his not-so-quiet way through the event. In what was a return to the absolute best of what we’ve seen from Filipe Toledo, the Brazilian wizard compiled three excellent heat totals across the event, including a perfect ten for a sublime tube to full rotation alley top combo on the thickest of four foot Burleigh nugs. 

“That style of wave, he’s been the best for a long period of time now. He’s proven that. His surfing just fits that style of wave so incredibly well, so I really had him perched up as the man to beat and sure enough it came to the final and he was the one standing there,” he says. 

As the event wore on, Toledo attracted as much support as Wilson courtesy of the Gold Coast’s huge Brazilian expat community. What transpired in the final will go down as one of the great exhibitions of futuristic point break surfing and competitive tenacity with a see-sawing battle that went down to the final hooter. It had everything: excellent surfing from both competitors; two of the highest combined totals of the event; relentless action; and a deafening crowd. When Filipe Toledo dropped the heat-winning 9.07 for a searing down carve to vicious lip attack, the Brazilians on the point erupted. 

“They definitely poked the bear for sure. There was eight minutes left in the heat and they were just chanting that it was all wrapped up. And it just absolutely did me in. I was just like, ‘Are you joking?! There’s eight minutes left! This thing is not over…My blood started boiling, I was splashing water, I was looking back at this massive pack of non-Australians going bonkers. I was just like, why? It really, really got under my skin,” he says.” 

When Julian hit back with a score in the excellent range, it put him within range of a last ditch victory. And he let both the Brazilian fans and Filipe know about it. 

“The next opportunity I converted into a good score and I let them know what I thought about what they’d been carrying on about,” he says. 

“I was so worked up I just got off the ski and let Filipe have it all. Went off on him. And to his point, and he’s totally right, it’s not him. It’s not his fault and I apologised to him straight away. I was like, dude, I’m sorry, it’s just really hard not to get worked up about that stuff. Then he made a really really bad decision with priority and I almost got to flip the script on the whole final just from that fire that got lit in me from the way they were claiming something that was so far from done,” he says.  

The bust up between the pair bore fruit for Julian when Filipe coughed up an instant priority error giving the Australian a shot at the biggest wave of the heat with just moments remaining. Wilson didn’t miss, leaving nothing in the tank as he went to town on the wave, the score coming in just under the required 8.81 at 8.4. Asked about the obligatory controversy over the scores, Julian was circumspect. 

“My take on it, is surfing is just a subjective sport. There have been finals that have gone my way and finals that haven’t. It’s just the way that it all washes out. I think that’s a beautiful thing about surfing and I think it’s something the WSL in recent times have started to accept…for me and Filipe to battle it out to the end and for people to even be talking about it one way or the other way, it’s good or the sport,” he says. 

“You can be passionate one or another but there’s no distinct line in the sand. You can’t pull out a speedometer and a carve-o-meter, you can’t pull out an angle meter, and ok, the science is: A) gets first and B) gets second. It’s never going to be that way and that’s maybe one of the coolest things about surfing. There’s never a finish line there’s never a clear cut decision. Sure, there are a lot of heats that are but the ones that come down to the end of the contest and they are subjective and could have gone either way, it’s almost a double win for the event because it doesn’t stop at the final. It carries on and keeps people connected and educated,” he says. 

After apologising to Toledo, Julian also made peace with the Brazilian fans, one of whom was on hand to shine a light on the father of three bicycle combination lock in the dark following the final so he could ride home, barefoot, in his contest rashie, and be with his family.