"More than results, I want to be remembered for the
performances that evoke emotion and that leave a mark."
Six years ago, I sat in a rented campervan parked in the
driveway of a Ventura, California beach house.
Across the table sat Carissa Moore, then a three-time world
champion. I was there to interview her for what became a cover
story at Red Bull’s print magazine.
Late in the interview, I asked the kind of routine question that
sometimes leads somewhere interesting, but just as often does not.
“Where would you like to be in five years?” I asked.
Twenty-five at the time, Carissa Moore wasn’t sure what her life
might look like five years in the future.
“I’ll be 30 then,” she said. “I would definitely like to be
still surfing.”
She’d recently started her Moore Aloha non-profit for girls and
imagined starting a family. “Maybe I’d take a year off and come
back on Tour as a mom. It would be pretty cool if that’s even
possible.”
Now 31, Carissa Moore is definitely still surfing. But what
surfing looks like to her and how it fits into the broader patterns
of her life is now set to change dramatically.
Early this morning in a wide-ranging
interview published at the New York Times, Carissa
Moore confirmed that she will end her competitive surfing career
this summer.
The five-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist plans to
surf the upcoming Lexus Pipe Pro and the 2024 Olympic Games.
Then she will turn to new pursuits and to a life no longer counted
out in 30-minute heats and measured in judges’ scores.
“All those wins, the competitive part that’s so much of my
identity, I’m taking that away, and I’m facing myself this year,”
Carissa told the New York Times. “And that’s scary. Like, who am
I?”
Born in Honolulu, Carissa learned to surf at Queens in the
shadow of Diamondhead at the age of 5.
Each day, she walked past the statue of Olympic swimming
champion Duke Kahanamoku on her way to surf.
When Carissa Moore was 10, her parents divorced and she divided
her time between her two parents, only surfing with her dad Chris
Moore.
Together Carissa and Chris, a ocean swimmer and body surfer
built her career, which at times made for a fraught relationship
between them.
By age 12, Carissa Moore had committed to surfing as a career
and a singular ambition.
From the start, Carissa’s talent stood out. She brought a speed
and progressive approach to her surfing that prompted comparisons
to Kelly Slater and Dane Reynolds. Together with surfers like Malia
Manuel, Coco Ho, and Lakey Peterson, Carissa brought a new approach
to women’s surfing. “It went from a lot of you know, cutbacks and
things like that, to blowing the tail,” says Jason Kenworthy, who
directed the film, Leave A Message. “That was pretty instant.”
Early clips of a teenaged Carissa show carving 360’s and tight,
vertical turns.
Her competitive career took off with dizzying speed. While still
in high school, Carissa qualified for the Championship Tour, and in
her first year on Tour at age 17, she won two CT events and
finished third overall. The following year in 2011, she won her
first world title.
Behind the scenes, the stresses of her personal life and the
weight of her own expectations led Carissa Moore to struggle with
eating disorders. The culture of surfing at the time didn’t help
with its emphasis on bikini babes and butt shots. It took time for
Carissa to feel comfortable in her own skin and to find herself
amidst the pressures of her fast-moving professional career.
Despite her inner turmoil, Carissa continued to push herself and
her sport. Between 2011 and 2015, Carissa and Stephanie Gilmore
traded world titles in a smiling, yet fierce rivalry. At times,
they seemed to pull women’s surfing in opposite directions with
Steph’s smooth grace standing in contrast with Carissa’s intensity,
strength, and progression. Steph will now retain the upper hand in
the world title count, but that was never the goal for Carissa. “I
didn’t go into it thinking I wanted to win ten world titles,”
Carissa told me back in 2018.
A four year gap between world titles tested Carissa’s
determination.
She considered quitting competition, but believed she had more
to give. In the meantime, her marriage to Luke Untermann in
December 2017 brought a new stability to her life and with it a
greater resilience. Even the most successful contest surfers lose
more heats than they win. For a surfer as demanding of herself as
Carissa, those losses have often hit hard. It’s taken much of her
career to learn how to ride that rollercoaster while retaining her
equilibrium.
“I have unconditional love,” she told me in 2022. “I’m going to
go out there and I’m going to surf my hardest. I’m going to surf my
heart out. And then I’m going to let it go. I just want to know
that I put it all out there. That’s all I can ask of myself. And if
I do that, I’ll be okay, regardless.”
As Carissa won two more world titles in 2019 and 2021, she
continued to evolve her surfing. At Newcastle in 2021, she landed
one of her first significant airs in competition. “That was a big
one for me,” she said. “It’s definitely something I’ve been trying
to work towards my whole career and I’ve done like little airs and
stuff — but that one actually felt like it was a legit one.” When
the World Surf League added Pipeline and Teahupo’o to the women’s
schedule, Carissa pushed past her fears and put her full attention
on her backside barrel surfing. Carissa has never been content to
stand still.
“She’s always learning and evolving,” said Duncan Scott, who has
coached Carissa over the years at J-Bay. “What’s incredible is that
Carissa has five world titles and when you watch her surfing, it’s
still evolving and you’re like, ‘shit, she’s still just getting
started.’”
The highpoint of Carissa’s career came in 2021 when she won
Olympic Gold and the world title in the same
year. Ahead of the Olympics, she wondered how it could
be bigger than winning a world title. “It definitely felt bigger
because of the prestige of the Olympics and the Games,” she said.
“It really does stand for something more than sport.” The
experience also brought Carissa more in touch with her Hawaiian
roots and affter winning Gold, she returned to Queens and hung her
leis on the statue of Kahanamoku.
In the short run, Carissa still has three big contests ahead of
her. She’ll compete at home in Hawai’i at Pipeline, where she won
in small waves in 2023. Carissa has chipped away at Pipe, slowing
building her skills. She’s taking off deeper and in bigger waves
now and has, improved her body position in the barrel. Certainly,
she’d love to go out with a win in good waves at Pipe in front of
her friends and family.
Then it’s on to the fearsome Teahupo’o for the Olympic Games. In
Tahiti, she’ll face strong competition from local girl Vahine
Fierro. Few athletes get to choose their endings, but a second
Olympic medal would be a beautiful end to Carissa’s competitive
career.
To look only at her results is to sell Carissa short.
More than many athletes, she’s set out self-consciously and
intentionally to serve as a role model to younger girls. Her Moore
Aloha non-profit has grown to include clinics, essay contests, and
international exchanges. During her early career, she did a photo
session for the ESPN Body Issue, but later asked that the photos
not be published. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them. In fact,
she’s said that she felt beautiful in the images. It simply wasn’t
the example she wanted to set.
“I know the kinds of values that I want to share with the next
generation and I know the kinds of feelings that I want to leave
with people,” she said. “And I’m always going to stay true to
that.”
How Carissa Moore pieces together her life after competition
remains an open question.
BeachGrit has confirmed that Carissa has a full-length film
project in the works.
It’ll be a joy to see how her surfing unfolds outside the
constraints of heats and judging criteria. There’s a whole world of
waves out there for her to explore and to surf in her own way,
purely as a form of self-expression. It will be exciting to see
what that looks like. And, there’s that prediction she made six
years ago about starting a family. Now at last, she’ll have the
time for the rest of her life.
One thing’s for sure: Carissa Moore’s legacy in surfing is
secure.
She readily stands among the best ever to do it and has shoved
the boundaries of women’s surfing outward. And, along the way,
she’s pushed herself, too. Somehow, Carissa has remained a uniquely
human champion, which makes the whole thing all the more inspiring.
She’s set a high bar for herself, and I’m not sure she’ll ever stop
reaching higher, whatever she chooses to do with her next
chapter.
“I think more than results, I want to be remembered for the
performances that evoke emotion and that leave a mark,” she said.
“I want someone to look back and be like, ‘Carissa was one of the
women to push the level, to get above the lip, and to do things
that were more creative. And, she surfed with this flair and this
pizazz and with this style that is timeless.’”
