Carissa crowned 2011 ASP World Champ in Biarritz aged just 18. Photo:Alex Laurel

At 18 years old, Carissa Moore was the youngest surfer to ever win an ASP Women’s World Title. She’s also the only American woman to win the title since Lisa Andersen’s four-title streak ended in 1997, and the first Hawaiian woman to bring the title back to the islands since Margo oberg in 1981. Moore’s path to global domination has been well charted. Success amongst the junior ranks came easier than a 360 in the soup. NSSA titles piled up, 11 in total. Then she quickly outgrew her competition, so she started competing against the boys until that became too easy too. In 2008 she upset seven-time world champ Layne Beachley to win the Reef Hawaiian Pro, thus elevating her as the youngest surfer to ever win a Vans Triple Crown event.

She showed up on the cover of Surfer magazine in ’09, the first female to do so in over a decade. In 2010 things started to get serious as she qualified for the ASP World Tour – albeit still determined to get her high school diploma (from Punahou School in Honolulu, the same institution that produced a certain President Barack obama). She’d win two events in ‘10, finish third in the world, and be named Rookie of the year. Then came her title year in 2011, when she won three out of five events, placing a not-so-disappointing second in the other three. of course, if you asked her about it all she says, “I’m just having fun.”

– JH