Oakley's New WTR Icon Surf Helmet Puts Premium on Head Protection In Heavy Water
Monday, July 29, 2024, will go down as one of the heaviest, most-watched days in competitive surfing in history. Surprising even the most seasoned surf forecasters, the morning dawned with clean conditions and a bombing swell apexing on the west bowl. By the time the first heat hit the water, it was obvious, there’d never been an Olympic event like this before. A life and death affair on sport’s biggest stage, when plans were hatched to bring the Games to Tahiti a few years ago, there was always the possibility that Teahupo’o could deliver, but the fact that it did deliver such show-stopping power will eventually come to be recognized as a game-changing moment in the sport of surfing.
Fully embracing the magnitude of the moment was Oakley, who’s WTR Icon surf helmet was seen protecting the domes of some of the world’s best. Worn by Olympic surfers in Tahiti, including Americans Caity Simmers and Griffin Colapinto, the helmet offers new technology in the rapidly expanding space that is surfing head protection.
As awareness around concussions and head injuries continues to grow, Oakley, who has a long and storied history of innovation, leaned into solving some of the problems with previous helmet tech. Touted as the lightest surf helmet on the market (it only weighs 365 grams), one of the driving factors in the development was ensuring that surfers maintained their ability to process their surroundings without their senses being impeded.
More akin to a light-weight, high-performance bike helmet than some of the clunky old surf helmets of old, the WTR Icon was engineered to provide “immediate drainage upon reaching the surface.” It also features “adjustable and removable ear protection, engineered to maintain hearing, prevent cuts and protect against eardrum blowouts, the helmet allows surfers to stay aware of their surroundings.”
Related: This Is What Team USA Olympic Surfers Will Wear Out of the Water
“The surf helmet space has been pretty stagnant for 20 years. It was refreshing as an engineer to dive headfirst into a project that had the pure intention of making something better with no guardrails,” Oakley Senior Design Engineer Bryan Norvell explained in a press statement. “We got to test prototype helmets on world-class athletes, both men and women, and hear their feedback first-hand, which allowed us to innovate and improve every element of the helmet-wearing experience. The end result is something we are incredibly proud of and really sets the bar for how a surf helmet should perform.”
“Even top pro surfers can have a wipeout that changes their life forever. But when it comes to wearing a helmet, surfers are still torn,” shares Colapinto
The helmet is made with Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) and has been given a four-star rating by Virginia Tech’s Helmet Lab. The world first got a glimpse of it when Simmers wore it at the Pipe Masters last January, where she won the event and emphatically declared, “Pipeline is for the f---ing girls.”
“While you need to know your limits, for sure, sometimes, you have to be downright reckless,” Simmers says. “Even at a spot like Pipeline, which I’m still learning and getting used to, wearing WTR Icon made me feel that much safer and more confident. Sometimes it’s just those little things that make all the difference between making a wave or not.”
The WTR Icon is expected to be available to the public in November 2024 with production ramping up and wider availability in early 2025.
Related: Gallery: This Day Will Go Down in Olympic Surfing History
