Triple Crown of Surfing

The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing is a Hawaii a specialty series of professional surfing events that have been held annually since 1983 on the North Shore of Oahu - a coastline world-famous in the surfing world for its powerful winter swells that the can reach 50 feet in height.

The Triple Crown was founded by former World Champion (1968) Fred Hemmings, and Randy Rarick, who produced the Triple Crown events. The Series came under Vans' ownership in 1998 and remains one of Vans' most iconic properties to this day.

The three unique venues of Haleiwa, Sunset, and Pipeline each offer their own set of challenges for the surfer. They are also the last three major events of the professional surfing season; the Pipe Masters being the final event of the World Surf League Championship Tour up until 2020 when it became the first event of the 2021 season (although still held in December of 2020).

In 2020, under challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the series went fully digital. Surfers had from December 21, 2020, to January 15, 2021, to upload their two best video clips from each of the three iconic venues. One of the high points of the digital Vans Triple Crown of Surfing series was the return of the women's division, and the return of women to Pipeline. The digital Vans Triple Crown of Surfing awarded individual location titles for Haleiwa, Sunset and Pipeline, as well as overall Vans Triple Crown champion titles to the top performing man and woman across all three locations, with a total prize purse of $200,000 split equally among men and women. There was also a digital Fan Vote title, for fan favorites - another first for Vans.

The events are:

• The Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa Ali'i Beach Park (Nov. 12 - Nov. 24)
• The World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach (Nov. 25 - Dec. 6)
• The Pipeline Masters at Ehukai Beach Park (in Pūpūkea, and home to the Banzai Pipeline) (Dec. 8 - Dec. 20).

The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing is second only to the World Surf League's World Title in terms of prestige and difficulty. It is considered to be the ultimate test of a surfer's ability to master the large and consequential waves in surfing's most legendary arena, among the most talented field of competitors in the sport.

In addition to individual event champions, the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing crowns an overall champion each year. This goes to the surfer who has performed best across all three competitions.