The Day Women's Pro Surfing Changed Forever (Video)
The 2024 Lexus Pipe Pro was a turning point in women’s professional surfing.
It was a new benchmark, a glass-shattering milestone, in the performance department from the world’s best female surfers at the world’s deadliest wave, Pipeline.
And with legacy surfers – like Carissa Moore and Stephanie Gilmore – stepping back from competitive surfing, it was also a welcome party for the next generation.
Caity Simmers, the radical Oceanside, CA surfer who won the 2024 Lexus Pipe Pro, and Molly Picklum, a very promising young surfer from Australia who scored the first perfect 10 in women’s history at Pipeline, emerged as the new big names to watch.
Announcing their arrival in a viral, mic-drop moment, Simmers proclaimed after her win: “Pipeline is for the fucking girls.”
Related: Video: 'The Greatest Heat in Women's Surf History' Just Went Down at Pipeline
Sure is.
Then, following Pipe, this crew of women – in addition to Hawaii’s Bettylou Sakura Johnson – went on to continue their generational shift in women’s surfing dominance with huge performances at the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach. Particularly, Picklum laid down what many were calling “the biggest turn in women’s surf history.”
Bold. Big. Brash.
Captioning the video above, the WSL wrote:
Related: Watch: The Biggest Turn in Women’s Surf History
“The next generation of women have taken over the Championship Tour. With dominant performances at Pipe and Sunset from Caity Simmers, Molly Picklum, and Bettylou Sakura Johnson, it's looking like whoever wants to raise the World Title Trophy this year is going to have to go through this crew of next-generation chargers.”
It’s still early in the 2024 Championship Tour season, but it looks like a new era is dawning with this crew of females. Not to mention, there’s the Paris 2024 Olympics, too, in which Simmers and Picklum will be competing at Teahupo’o, Tahiti.
The future is now.
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