Surfing
Surfing
5 points that put Bells Beach and the Rip Curl Pro atop surfing's podium
Read on to find out why you won't want to miss a minute of this Easter's Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, live from the Colosseum of Australian surfing.
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Bells Beach, in Torquay, Australia, is the ultimate venue for competitive surfing. The red clay cliffs that tower over the beach form a perfect natural amphitheatre and, when the event runs, they are lined with thousands of spectators. Bells draws in the best of the Southern Ocean's energy, big, raw swell, which is then groomed by bitterly cold winds, fresh off the Australian Alps.
23 min
Bells Beach 2019
It doesn't get more Australian than this as the Championship Tour descends on Bells Beach, Victoria.
Competitors make their way to the beach down a long wooden staircase that snakes through the scrub and the boisterous crowd to hit the sand like gladiators, ready to enter the fray of battle. Are you not entertained?
Every Easter, the world's best surfers come to Torquay to compete for surfing's most famous trophy, and every Easter, thousands of sports-mad Melburnians make the 90-minute pilgrimage down to the coast to enjoy the show. Here's what they're in for when the 2025 WSL Championship Tour hits town.
01
If these cliffs could talk
Torquay sits on the traditional land of the Wadawurrung People of the Kulin Nation. The Wadawurrung name for Bells is Djarrak, meaning "bended arm", which describes the shape of the cliffs around the beach.
The set-up for the 1967 Australian championships at Bells Beach
© Australian National Surfing Museum
In the 1840s, the Bell family settled in the area and gave the beach their name. In 1957, members of the Torquay Surf Lifesaving Club followed the dirt track out of town, trekked through the bush and rode waves at Bells Beach for the first time. In 1960, a local surfer (and Olympic wrestler!) Joe Sweeney talked the council into allowing him to extend the track all the way to Bells Beach. As the project cost Sweeney 32 pounds, he charged his surfing peers a pound each to use the track, recouped his money in no time and changed the face of Australian surfing forever.
In 1961, the first surfing competition was held, the Bells Beach Easter Rally. This became an annual event, and by 1973, it was entrenched on the world circuit. It has been known as the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach ever since.
Carissa Moore and the bottom turn Bells wins are built on
© Ed Sloane/World Surf League
When an event runs for so long, it is naturally going to create a legacy, but the history of Bells is folkloric, more than fleeting memories. The record books highlight Gail Couper winning 10 events between 1964 and 1976, Michael Peterson's legendary performances in the 1970s, Simon Anderson unleashing the thruster (tri-fin surfboard) in spectacular fashion in 1981, and more recently the star turns of everyone from Kelly Slater to Carissa Moore, Stephanie Gilmore and Mick Fanning.
The local Wadawurrung people welcome the WSL to Djarrak
© Ed Sloane/World Surf League
Equally as important are the finer details. Competitors are welcomed by, and in return, the event honours the Wadawurrung people. "Hells Bells", by iconic Aussie band AC/DC, opens every day of competition. Plaques bearing winners' names are slowly creeping their way up the 94 steps of the famous staircase.
Local grommets' years are made when they get to be board caddies to their heroes, or surf with the women of the CT as part of the WSL's Rising Tides program. Easter at Bells is a Victorian rite of passage for sports fans and party animals alike. All of these factors add up to the stuff of legend, and mean as much to the event as the results themselves.
02
The winners' circle is an exclusive club
In addition to surfing, wrestling, and self-funded civil engineering projects, Joe Sweeney was also an amateur blacksmith who made every Bells trophy until his passing in 2016. As the saying goes, "you have to win it to ring it," and since 1973, there have only been 53 surfers who have had the privilege.
Mick Fanning in 2014, winning his third of four Bells
© World Surf League
Skewed by Bells' early days as a mainly local event, the home dominates the honour roll, with two-thirds of male winners, and a third of all female champions, coming from Australia.
Caity Simmers en route to a breakthrough Bells victory
© Ed Sloane/World Surf League
Gail Couper rang an incredible 10 Bells, a record that will likely never be broken, while the four-time winners society could arguably be surfing's version of Mount Rushmore, counting Mark Richards, Lisa Andersen, Kelly Slater, Mick Fanning and Steph Gilmore as members. Honourable mentions go to three-time victors Michael Peterson, Simon Anderson, Layne Beachley, Sunny Garcia, Joel Parkinson, Carissa Moore and Courtney Conlogue.
With 44 world titles between them, it is far quicker to list the world champions who have not won Bells this century than to name those who have. On the men's side, Gabriel Medina and CJ Hobgood have never lifted the trophy, while Chelsea Georgeson and Caroline Marks (who surely will) are the only female champs yet to ring the Bell.
Other notable winners over the years include Australian Simon Anderson's victorious campaign in huge waves in 1981, atop his newly created three-fin surfboard. This simultaneously vindicated his innovative thruster design and ended the era of twin-fin surfboards. The youngest ever winner at Bells Beach was 16-year-old Aussie Nick Wood, who won in 1987.
Ethan Ewing wins Bells, 40 years after his mother
© Ed Sloane/World Surf League
Ethan Ewing rang the Bell in 2023, 40 years after his mother, Helen Lambert, did the same. Although she passed away when Ewing was young, he grew up with the trophy on his bedside table.
Italo Ferreira famously had a koala ringing a Bell inked onto his bicep after claiming his first-ever CT win in Torquay, beating Mick Fanning in a legendary final in 2018. Perhaps Hawaiian hellman Shane Dorian summed it up best onstage, after he lifted the trophy in 1999, simply stating that, "No kook has ever won at Bells!" Indeed.
03
Torquay is the spiritual home of Australian surfing
Perched on the doorstep of the Great Ocean Road – a 250km stretch of cute coastal towns and waves of all descriptions – Torquay is the birthplace of the surf industry, the beating heart of Australian competitive surfing, and is filled with the fibres that tie the two together.
Rip Curl's first outlet? An old bakery
© Rip Curl
Torquay is a hardcore surf town with rugged weather and wild waves, just how the locals who live there like it. The town pulses with surfing history and pride and is home to legendary brands Rip Curl and Quiksilver. Both founded in 1969, DIY energy still defines the town today.
Driving through Torquay, the first thing you notice are enormous surf retail outlets that look like caryards, but look a little deeper and you’ll see the Australian National Surfing Museum, shapers working out of their backyard sheds, and cafés filled with everyone from groms to pros and local legends.
In the world of surfing, certain places just feel sacred; Oahu's North Shore, J-Bay and Teahupo’o, to name a few. In Australia, that place is Torquay; it’s where surfing’s past, present, and future meet, on the cliffs above Bells Beach.
04
Bells is a true test of style, power and technique
Modern Championship Tour surfing has been defined by wild Pacific tuberides and crazy aerials lofted high over beachbreaks. Bells offers little of this.
The World Surf League map out Bells and Winkipop
© World Surf League
Bells isn’t flashy, and that’s why it matters. The long, cold righthander is all about laying your board on rail at full speed, with maximum flow and commitment, the way good surfers have done for generations. Why do you think Jordy Smith loves Bells? The big man from South Africa has the purest pointbreak pedigree in surfing, he grew up at Jeffreys Bay and six of his seven event wins have come going right over rock and reef. In 2018, Smith finally gave the Bell an overdue ring, his bulletproof style and strength allowing him to overcome any hurdles the Southern Ocean served up.
Mick Fanning, Bells Beach
© ASP/Robertson
You don’t just win Bells – you earn it. There’s something about that wave that forces you to bring your best surfing
Bells doesn't dish out ramps or mechanical tubes. Instead, it demands mastery of the fundamentals: speed generation, positioning, and powerful turns linked with precision and grace. Names like Fanning, Gilmore, Moore and Parkinson have tasted Bells' success time and again because they're big and strong and confident, and they've got their fundamentals locked in. Power surfing will never die, and Bells Beach is the wave that will forever keep it burning bright.
05
Torquay goes hard, in and out of the water
The annual arrival of the Championship Tour transforms the town into a buzzing festival of surf, complete with demo days, plenty of live music, art shows and industry parties that light up the Easter long weekend.
Griffin Colapinto feeling the love from the Victorian crowd
© Ed Sloane/World Surf League
We all know the science of what makes a wave. Bells Beach is legendary because the ocean floor provides a perfect contour to harness the big Southern Ocean swells that roll through, turning into long rides with a wavering lip that’s begging to be hit with turn after turn. When the conditions are just right, the wave at Bells can start all the way out at Rincon and break right through Outside Bells into The Bowl. While the wave may look perfect from the headland, it is a technical wave that requires power and practice to make sure those turns really link up.
Bells' waves are walls that rarely barrel like other key stops on the tour. This means that for the surfers to score big points, they need to showcase all of their rail-surfing talent; wave selection alone won’t be enough to get them through. There’s no easy 10 tubes rolling through to save anyone lagging in their heat.
But don’t think that wave selection isn’t still key. Bells is as notorious for the lulls between sets as it is for waves. You don’t want to paddle for the first one only to be caught on the inside by the rest, it’s not a fun way to spend your day.
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