We also say goodbye to Glen “Micro” Hall, whose season has sadly been blighted by injury. If Micro were to stand on Travis Logie’s shoulders, and Travis were to stand on Aritz Aranburu’s, the three of them together might be just about as tall as Owen Wright. Now that would be a specialty heat. With their departure the average height on tour looks set to rise a little, although having said that new arrival from the QS Keanu Asing is shorter than all three of them put together. Well, yes, clearly he’s shorter than all three of them put together, else he’d be at least as tall as Owen Wright – what I mean is that he’s very short indeed.

Likewise departing are Tiago Pires, Raoni Monteiro, Mitch Crews and Dion Atkinson. The last two mentioned were the only two rookies on tour, meaning Dion finds himself in the bizarre position of both receiving the Rookie Of The Year award and returning to the QS. Joining them is one other surfer, of course, and that is Alejo Muniz. Never before has a surfer dropped off the tour in such triumphant circumstances. After a fairly anonymous season Alejo needed to win the Pipe Masters in order to return next year, but first he would have to face Kelly Slater in Round 3 and later Mick Fanning in Round 5.

There was an obvious subtext here, of course. These two happened to be the only two surfers other than Medina who could still win the title, and Alejo just happened to be a Brazilian. Kelly was out of the running by the time his heat with Muniz came around, Medina having already advanced to Round 4, but Alejo’s victory felt symbolic nonetheless. He clinched the win with just over a minute left to go, catching one of the waves of the day at Backdoor and travelling long and deep inside the near-flawless tube for a 9.5.