How many surfing world titles has Carissa Moore won?
Carissa Moore has been riding waves since she was just four years old; she will be taking part in the first ever surfing event to be held at an Olympic Games.
Riding the waves comes naturally to Carissa Moore. The 28-year-old, born in Honolulu, Hawaii, started surfing when she was just four years old - supervised by her father, Chris on trips down to Waikiki Beach. At 18, she became the youngest surfer to win a world championship, fending off the defending champion and four-time ASP World Tour winner, Australia’s Stephanie Gilmore and ending the series on 55,000 points in the final standings. She was the first world champion from Hawaii since Lynne Boyer in 1979.
Points record in 2015
Moore was unable to follow up her success in 2012 but was back to winning ways the following year, finishing third as Gilmore reclaimed her crown. But she was back in the podium in 2013, winning four out of the eight stops (Margaret River, Bell’s Beach, Huntington Beach and Cascais). Once again, Gilmore proved too strong in 2014 as both women continued to trade successive titles. Twelve months on and Moore was back at the top of the leaderboard for her third world crown, scoring 66,200 points - the biggest figure ever recorded in a single WSL World Championship season.
Surfing, a new event at the Olympics
Carrisa had to settle for third place in 2016 and came fifth in 2017 - the only time she has ended outside of the top three. In 2019 she secured her fourth world title and in doing so, was one of the eight surfers from the women’s section to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Surfing is one of the five events which will take place for the first time at the Games.
On Tsurigasaki Beach in Chiba, around 60km east of Tokyo, Moore will be up against some of her biggest rivals - but not Stephanie Gilmore who was surprisingly eliminated in the Third Round, losing to South Africa's Bianca Buitendag. The Hawaiian is trying to stay philosophical about being a part of the first ever surfing event at an Olympic Games. As she told USA Today, “I have to trust the universe that it’s going to work out, at the end of the day, there’s things I can’t control and I have to accept whatever happens”.