Tyler Wright has claimed her first Championship Tour victory since a series of concussion and equilibrium issues to make surfing history as the first woman to win Hawaii’s iconic Pipeline Pro twice.

Wright, 30, upset American No.1 Caity Simmers in a tense final on Hawaii’s North Shore, delivering Wright’s first tour win in almost two years and an encore to her 2021 Pipeline triumph.

Hawaiian local Barron Mamiya defended his Pipeline crown in the most dramatic fashion on the men’s side of the draw, winning a countback in the final against Italy’s Leo Fioravanti after both surfers finished with impressive 17.97 scores from their two best waves.

Fioravanti, who broke his back and was almost paralysed surfing Pipeline as a teenager, smacked the water in frustration when his blistering barrel was contentiously scored as a 9.10. The judges ruling allowed Mamiya to keep his lead on the technicality of holding the highest scoring wave (a 9.8) in the final.

As for Wright, the tour veteran has battled numerous injury and illness issues throughout her career, most notably a debilitating bout of post-viral syndrome left her bed-bound in 2018 after back-to-back world titles.

Last year she spoke candidly of the ongoing complications from an off-season operation that inserted seven screws into her head to ease breathing issues that had left her “semi-suffocating all the time”.

A skull expansion surgery inserted a maxillary palatal expander into Wright’s mouth to widen her previously narrow airways, an operation she has described as life-changing after competing with breathing issues her entire career.

But Wright’s surgery also exacerbated head knocks she suffered in Hawaii 12 months ago, with concussion issues re-surfacing throughout 2024 and ruling her out of events.