BACK ON BOARD FOR THE BIG TIME As four-time world champion surfer Carissa Moore has discovered, the quest for greatness sometimes begins with a journey to figure out who you really are Words J<strong>EN</strong> SEE Photography TREVOR PIKHART 28 THE RED BULLETIN
SURFING/CARISSA MOORE F our days before Christmas of 2019, Carissa Moore made an announcement that shook the surfing world. Via Instagram, she explained in a video message that she’d decided to take a year off from the World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour. “This is something that I have given a lot of thought,” said the pro surfer from Hawaii. <strong>The</strong> post came only three weeks after she won the championship for the fourth time. Only five female surfers before her have ever achieved this feat. Being interviewed right after taking the trophy, she seemed overwhelmed and visibly touched. “This has not only been a year of work but three years of growing and learning,” she said. “It’s been a journey.” Why would a top athlete who just scored what’s arguably the most important victory of their career decide to take a break? Why not trying to sustain the momentum and enter the next season full of self-confidence? It seemed that Moore had figured out that balance is the key to her long-term success. Balance that she planned to improve in a year of just being Carissa. “I have dedicated the last ten years of my life competing at the highest level and want to continue to do that well into my thirties,” she said in the Instagram video. “This break is a press-refresh so that I can come back to the tour happier and more excited than ever in 2021.” This is the story of how Carissa Moore set out to find herself, and how she turned this past year into a personal victory. First steps Born in Honolulu, Moore learned to surf at Queen’s Waikiki Beach when she was four years old. Her father, Chris, who competed in open-water swimming, wanted to share his love for the ocean with his daughter, so he taught her to surf. Moore believes that her father wanted to strengthen the bond between them. “He wanted to find a way to keep me home,” she says. “If I fell in love with the ocean, I wouldn’t move very far.” It would be easy to assemble snapshots of an idyllic childhood. She surfed in the clear waters of Waikiki next to the Diamondhead volcano, where people have surfed for centuries. Surfing history infused Moore’s childhood. But the truth is it wasn’t always an idyllic childhood. When Moore was 10 years old, her parents got divorced. “I didn’t surf when I was with my mom,” she says. “Just on my dad’s days.” She bounced between her parents until her senior year in high school. Surfing brought Moore closer to her dad, who drove her to the beach before and after school. When she was about 12, surfing switched from being a fun afterschool activity to a competitive passion. “I remember having a conversation with my dad on a car ride home from the beach,” she says, recalling being asked how far she wanted to go with surfing. “I told him, ‘I want to be the best in the world.’ ” Moore was a precocious talent from the start. “We saw her as the next Kelly Slater when she was 12 years old,” says seven-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore. As a teenager, Moore travelled to contests around the world. By the time she’d turned 17, Moore had reached the Championship Tour, an elite selection of the top 17 female surfers. During her first year on the tour in 2010, Moore won two events and finished the season ranked third overall. <strong>The</strong> following year Moore stormed to her first world title. She opened the 2011 season with a win at Snapper Rocks, a righthand point break on Australia’s Gold Coast. By year’s end, she’d won three of the tour’s seven events. With her world title secured, Moore accepted wildcard invitations to compete with the men at Haleiwa and Sunset Beach on Oahu’s North Shore. She was the first woman to compete in a prestigious Triple Crown event. THE RED BULLETIN 29
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