Ethan Ewing’s victory at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach on Tuesday was filled with emotion.
After winning at J-Bay in 2022, the victory was Ewing’s second on the Championship Tour and his first on home soil in Australia.
Ewing long had Bells as the event he desired more than any other given his late mother Helen – who passed away in 2005 when he was just six – won at the famous break in 1983.
Having slept beside his mother’s bell as a child, Ethan winning one of his own means the Ewings are now the first mother-son duo to claim the same WSL event and surfing legend Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew described the 24-year-old’s victory as a magical moment.
“I was here 40 years ago when Helen won Bells,” Bartholomew told SENQ Breakfast with Pat and Heals.
“For Ethan to win, it was just one of those magical moments and it made up for the below-standard surf.
“The story itself, it was just magical.”
#RipCurlProBellsBeach Men's Final Results:
— World Surf League (@wsl) April 11, 2023
🇦🇺 #EthanEwing - 14.50 ✅
🇦🇺 @ryancallinan - 11.00@ripcurl @OriginalBonsoy @Melbourne pic.twitter.com/TI6jts7T9O
Bartholomew, the 1978 world champion, was on tour when Helen claimed her bell and he believes the North Stradbroke local had the talent to be one of the greats if she opted to become a full-time professional surfer at her peak.
“Those folks over there in North Straddie (North Stradbroke Island), it’s hard to leave the island,” Bartholomew said.
“If Helen had gone on the world tour, she would have been world champion, she was that good.”
After entering the water first on Tuesday morning to defeat three-time world champ Gabriel Medina in the Round of 16, Bartholomew says Ewing looked a level above the competition as he won all four of his heats across a 10-hour day to claim victory.
“There’s a lot of tournaments around the world but for Ethan, this is the one he wanted, he wanted that bell,” Bartholomew said.
“It was the one that stood out amongst everything else including the big events in Hawaii and other places, he wanted that bell.
“He got it in style, he was so dominant yesterday, from the word go, to me he looked the winner.”
In the women’s competition, Australia’s Tyler Wright was the winner with the two-time world champion now a back-to-back winner at Bells Beach.
Ewing is now ranked fourth in the men’s championship tour rankings, with fellow Aussie Jack Robinson in second with the Western Australia Margaret River Pro the tour’s next event.