In October 2006, Australian surfing great Layne Beachley was on top of the world. She had won a record six world titles and was on track to add a seventh. Since winning her first crown in 1998, the Manly local had become a global sporting star and was using her platform to advance women’s surfing, going so far as to organise the Havianas Beachley Classic – with a bumper prize purse – at her home beach in Sydney.
Beachley cruised through to the final, where yet another competition win seemed inevitable. It was a fairy-tale finale as retirement loomed (she ultimately stopped competing two years later). The best female surfer in history was set to win her own WSL event, at the beach she grew up shredding.
Only a teenage prodigy had not read the script. In the final Beachley came up against Stephanie Gilmore, a 19-year-old from northern New South Wales who had secured a wildcard after winning the trials. It was the present and future of Australian surfing battling it out on the same waves, a passing of the guard. Gilmore was not unknown – she had secured her maiden WSL event win, also as a wildcard, the year prior. But her dominance in the final, against the greatest of all-time, made observers sit up. The future had arrived.
It would take almost two decades, but on Thursday Gilmore finally surpassed Beachley by winning a record eighth WSL title, at the finals surf-off in California. After claiming the 2018 world title, Gilmore had spent four years level with her childhood idol on seven titles apiece. A string of middling results and the rise of a new generation hinted that the 34-year-old might never again be crowned world champion. But across a frenetic four match-ups at Lower Trestles, Gilmore showed emphatically that she remains one of the best on tour.
The journey to all-time greatness that began all those years ago in Manly is now complete. Gilmore’s eight world titles, spanning three separate decades (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2022), is eclipsed only by male surfer Kelly Slater, with eleven. She has also won the most WSL events of any women, with 33, and is the only surfer to win a world title in their debut season.
Her victory on Thursday was unexpected. Formerly decided by a cumulative points ranking across the season, in recent years the WSL has opted to decide the world title through a finals format. After the regular season is over, the top five surfers compete in a one-day surf-off. Fifth faces fourth in a sudden-death heat, before the winner takes on third, and so on. Whichever surfer makes it through ultimately competes against the world No 1, in a best-of-three heat final.
Gilmore entered finals day on Thursday ranked fifth, having missed the season opener with Covid-19 and won just one event during the year – in El Salvador. Australia’s male surfers have spent the season in the spotlight after a fallow few years – it was them (Jack Robinson in second and Ethan Ewing in third), not Gilmore, who looked primed for a title charge. But while the men were knocked out in consecutive heats, Gilmore was left standing.
She did not have it easy. Gilmore trailed for the majority of her opening heat, against world No 4, Brisa Hennessy. With less than a minute on the clock, the Australian secured the ride she needed to win by less than half a point. She then narrowly beat world No 3 Tatiana Weston-Webb, before breezing past second-ranked Johanne Defay. After winning three heats in a row, Gilmore faced defending world champion Carissa Moore in the title-decider. She won both heats in quick succession to secure the crown.
“I disliked this format to be honest,” Gilmore admitted afterwards with characteristic honesty. “The world champ should be crowned in all the different waves over the entire period of the year.” But the win had changed her mind. “And now I love it,” she said.
A surfer for all conditions, Gilmore has won events in the heavy barrels of Hawaii, the clean lines of Bells Beach in Victoria and Rio’s shifting beach breaks. As the sport and the women’s competition has rapidly evolved since her first year on tour, in 2007, Gilmore has been the constant – an enduring feature of the WSL, and now an elder stateswoman of surfing.
One day Gilmore’s own 2006 Beachley moment will come, eclipsed by the next big thing. Her claim to being empirically the greatest of all time might be threatened in the years ahead, by Hawaiian star Moore, four years younger than Gilmore, who already has five titles to her name. But for now Gilmore stands alone.
For Beachley, there are clearly no hard feelings. She posted a comment on Instagram: “Fucking legend,” followed by eight trophy emojis. The post she was commented on, by surfing magazine Tracks, was equally simple: “The greatest female surfer of all time.” As Gilmore showed in Manly all those years ago, again at Trestles on Thursday and at so many events in between, she is the undisputed queen of surfing.
