The Quik Pro is due to kick off tomorrow morning and with all time banks, an exciting forecast and a captivating title race underway it promises to be one of the most entertaining ever to grace France’s sun bathed south west coastline.

”There’s a lot of waves but a lot of wind too’ said contest director Alain Riou of the forecast ‘tomorrow is a surprise, there’s definitely a window for big barrels. I’m excited about the weekend, probably Friday, Saturday, it looks still quite solid and less wind’. There’s a crazy low tide bank at Culs Nuls’ he continued ‘proper below sea levels barrels!’

Expectations are high going into the event as the last few months have seen a whole host of amazing footage from Hossegor’s famed beachies. The last few days have also seen a series of epic sessions at La Grav, where both the local wildcard Joan Duru and world number two Gabriel Medina have appeared to be on blistering form.

‘I’ve been surfing a lot in the last three days, because at home I didn’t get many waves so I needed to surf’ said Medina of his warm up. When we quizzed him on what his ideal conditions would be for the week ahead, he was pretty ambivalent ‘I surf these kind of beach breaks everyday when I’m home, big waves, small waves, I don’t really care. I like it when it’s rippable lefts, but I like to get barrelled and bigger surf as well’

Joel Parkinson lining up on a solid one yesterday morning at La Grav

The event is a particularly critical one for Wilko as he is looking for a big result to keep his world title dreams alive. We caught up with him to ask about the dramatic transition from his position this time last year,  where he was fighting to re-qualify, to his current spot at number three and whether he was feeling the pressure.

‘It’s a different pressure I guess’ he said ‘If I do good now this could be the best thing that will ever happen in my life. It’s gone from fuck if I don’t do good now i might be laying bricks for the rest of my life to going into the last three comps equal with two other guys’

Wildcard Leo Fioravanti will definitely be another one to watch when competition gets underway. He’s currently sat at number one on the QS rankings after a string of  big results this year and is a force to be reckoned with in Le Grav’s hollow beachies.

Be sure to tune in for the first call tomorrow at 7am GMT, for a potential start to what promises to be a very exciting start to the European leg.