“Competing after those three days of being mostly bedridden and unable to eat was the harsh reality of navigating my period.”

A little over one week ago, the two-time world champ Tyler Wright surrendered her yellow tour leader’s jersey to Carissa Moore after falling in the first round at the Surf Ranch Pro. Wright’s performance lacked her usual fizz, sword drawn but feebly waved.

Now, the twenty-nine-year-old Australian has taken to Instagram to explain the reason for her dulled  performance, revealing she was hospitalised for three days prior to getting into the famous Kelly Slater-designed pool. 

“It’s hard when you put so much work into something, you feel great and then you have a period so horrible it hospitalises you 3 days out from an event,” she wrote. “Competing after those 3 days of being mostly bedridden and unable to eat was the harsh reality of navigating my period while meeting requirements in my professional career. 

 

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“At times it’s deflating physically and emotionally, feeling like you have no say in it. Managing my period has been a journey. I’ve come along way from my teen years, not even knowing it wasn’t normal to suffer monthly excruciating pain that would lead to passing out, vomiting and hours on the toilet. These days my period management looks like a customised training program based around the 4 menstrual stages, listening and planning carefully for what my body needs – even if that means less time practicing in the water before comps, prioritising sleep and recovery leading up to my period and being aware this is the time I am at highest risk of injury. 

“At this stage in my life I am also heavily reliant on painkillers while I menstruate. They aren’t ideal but my other option is to have surgery to try find and fix the reason for these debilitating periods. The surgery isn’t a guaranteed solution and I would have to take time off from competing as well as rebuilding.”

Last month, after finishing seventeenth in Portugal, Wright revealed she was “no longer leaving home without her psychologist or her wife again.” 

Wright, who won her first big event at fourteen and two consecutive world titles at twenty-two and twenty-three, told the Sydney Morning Herald, “I’m the only queer person on tour, so my wife is the only other queer person I know most of the time. I love everyone around me but she makes such a difference in a way only she really can.”

"I watched it a half dozen times to compare frontside to backside, rights to lefts. I think it was a fair result."

Just as the heat started to simmer on the Surf Ranch Pro imbroglio where WSL judges were accused of  ineptitude, bias and, by swarms of Brazilian surf fans, racism, after Gabriel Medina’s loss to Ethan Ewing in his quarter-final and Italo Ferreira in the final against Colapinto, Kelly Slater has weighed into the fray. 

To recap, read “Australian surfer Ethan Ewing threatened with death following controversial win”, “Gabriel Medina pens open letter to WSL complaining of ‘shocking’ judging” and “Pro surfing in chaos as its biggest stars turn on WSL and CEO Erik Logan”. 

In an interview with The Inertia mostly concerning Kelly’s new environmental turtle sandals the KLLY, talk turned, briefly, to the fracas, 

“With anything subjective, you’re going to have errors. If something is even close, how do you objectively say for sure something was a rip off or crime? But to say (a result) is a rip off or a crime, that bothers me – claiming it’s a crime (that Medina lost). I thought Ethan beat Gabriel. I rewatched the heat a few times. Other people (I trust) watched it, who are very in the know. I won’t name any names, but they thought Ethan won the heat. His best ride was definitely his right. That’s not to say anything against Gabe. I thought he was awesome and he has definitely been the best guy out there. I didn’t pay attention to the live heat, but I was surprised to hear he had lost. I watched it a half dozen times to compare frontside to backside, rights to lefts. I think it was a fair result. I’m not sure about Italo and Griff’s heat. I haven’t looked at it as closely. People said that Ethan’s air (against Medina) wasn’t as good and I was like, ‘what are you talking about?’ To land on the nose, get it around in that section. That’s extremely difficult.”

Kelly also hinted at an exit from the tour in 2025, aged fifty three.

“Yeah, I definitely want to surf this year, then next,” he said. “It’s an Olympic year and I want to see if I can make the team. I haven’t made any formal announcement or anything but if I surf this year, then next, I think that’ll probably be good. I’ve done enough. But who knows? I could win one of these next few events and just feel like, ‘that’s it, that’s enough, I’m good.’”