All Hail Carissa Moore

Every generation in female surfing had a few what we would like to call Bulldozers in them. Someone who took the sport to the next level, pushed the boundaries and impacted those around them.

They made everyone lift and be better, and I’m not talking just competitors, I mean viewers, contest directors, sponsorships and more. Carissa Moore was our bulldozer. She rose to every occasion thrown at her, even the ones where she lost. Our sports most gracious winner and loser and potentially one of if not the number one athlete to give back to the next generation. 

Unfortunately it’s the end of an era, and a real bittersweet day. A few days ago reigning gold medalist Carissa Moore lost in a wind slop battle against Johanne Defay in the quarterfinals of the olympics. That loss means the end of the road for our beloved Carissa Moore after she announced retirement from the tour earlier this year in July. 

Her post olympic loss speech would have made any grown man cry, saying “I took a chance, I left the tour to come here… so when you come up short of a dream it sucks”. 

But in true Carissa fashion she rounded out her speech with positive uplift, “how fun was it all! I couldn’t imagine a better place to finish off my career”. 

After 14 years and 127 Championship Tour events, 29 CT victories, 344 CT heat wins and With 5 world titles to her name, her run as a competitive surfer was more than great. To add to that, she will go down in history as the first ever female Olympic gold medalist in surfing. She is a testament to our sport and we amongst the surf community were lucky to have her. 

She’s left a trail of inspiration behind her, with almost every young girl wanting to be her. To leave you with a quote from her recent instagram post that perfectly sums her up, “Don’t be afraid to go into it fearlessly and don’t be afraid to fail” – Riss

I know this isn’t the last we’ll see of her but for now, we can enjoy some seriously good surfing through her instagram or her surfing part in Nike Leave a message. Still to this day my favourite surf movie of all time.