Tyler Wright, surfing’s reigning world champion, brims with power in action and in conversation. As she talks candidly to the Guardian, it becomes quickly apparent that her style – fast, aggressive, taking the fight to the waves – is very much a product of both her personality and her physicality.
“The surfing that I do matches the kind of person I am,” says the Australian. “I’ve always referenced the two and that’s where my style and inspiration comes from. It’s pretty much a direct representation of who I am. Body shape helps as well,” she reflects in conversation in the back of a surf shop that overlooks Manly beach in Sydney.
“I’m comfortable, very confident, and it reflects in a powerful manner. Just the way I hold myself in certain situations – it comes from knowing myself, and that’s what’s reflected. It translates into a confident, powerful, strong style of surfing.”
That style, also championed by a number of other top contenders on the elite Championship Tour, represents something of an evolution of women’s surfing; with Wright securing her maiden world title last year, and the likes of fellow power surfers Carissa Moore and Courtney Conlogue in the mix and tipped to push for glory this season, there has been a noticeable shift.
Power alone is not enough, though. Wright points to Hawaiian Moore as an inspiration, yet still identifies Stephanie Gilmore, one of the most elegant surfers in history, as one of her role models. The implication is that there are elements of both schools to be incorporated in the ultimate surfer’s repertoire.
“There’s always room for progression in every area,” she says. “You want a little bit of everything. If you were straight-up powerful it wouldn’t work because then you would oversurf, overdrive, overwork each section and at times that’s not needed. You need elegance, you need grace in certain sections of the wave.”
Wright’s attitude in and out of the water is a key component of her success, but so too are her physical attributes. Without the body she has, she says, her ability to stay fit throughout an entire season could be compromised.
“There are all different shapes and sizes,” she says. “My brother [pro surfer Owen Wright] is the opposite to me – he’s 6ft 4in and lanky. I’m shorter and compact and a very solid unit. For me that’s what I’m used to and what I love.
“Every situation I put myself in – and there’s been some risky ones and some dangerous ones – I’ve always been able to manage to not be seriously hurt. My body’s been able to move in certain ways where I can avoid serious injury. I’ve always been very thankful for that.”
The mention in the same breath of her brother and the threat of serious injury is arresting; 2016, the year she realised her dream of winning the World Surf League’s Championship Tour, was also tinged for large parts with nightmarish thoughts. Indeed, her crowning achievement, at the age of 22, was all the more remarkable given it came at a time when her focus on surfing was being seriously challenged by events away from the water and beyond her control.
Towards the end of 2015, Owen, a title contender on the men’s Tour, tumbled from his board during a free surf at the season-ending event at Hawaii’s notorious Pipeline. Wave after wave pounded down on him and, despite being able to paddle in and return to his room, he soon felt ill and was taken to hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe concussion and bleeding on the brain.
For Tyler, the initial distress of seeing her older sibling taken away in the back of an ambulance gave way to months of concern about his condition as he began a long and arduous recovery. It still affects her: when Owen returned to competitive surfing – at a World Surf League (WSL) qualifying series event in Newcastle last month – she could not bear to see it.
“No, I couldn’t. I just wasn’t ready to watch yet. It’s been a very interesting personal year and to watch someone go through that, it’s a very emotional thing. Obviously I support him in every way possible, but watching him I wasn’t ready for.”
Owen won his first heat at Merewether beach before bouncing out of the competition in the second round; Tyler was more occupied with his health, something she says he prioritises over anything else. Relieved that he came through unscathed, she says she will pluck up the courage to watch him again at some point in the future, although the start of the new season at Snapper Rocks this week – where Owen will compete after he confirmed he would take up an injury wildcard to return to the Championship Tour this season – may come too soon.
Helping her through the process is a sense that normality is now, finally, returning to family life. “To know where he’s come from to where he is now, I understand how long that journey has been, not only physically but mentally and emotionally and everything else in between,” she says. “It’s just a nice thing to hear him talking about it [surfing] again. It’s conversations that haven’t taken place in over a year – they’re starting to come back up again and that’s cool.”
For obvious reasons, Owen wasn’t in France last year to help his sister celebrate when she secured the world title at the Roxy Pro in Hossegor. She lost that particular final – to Moore – but she had already become the first woman since Gilmore in 2008 to win five events in one season. She also reached another final and rivalled her counterparts on the men’s Tour for prize money in what was an astounding year.
Wright, who hails from Culburra beach in New South Wales, had been on the Tour for five seasons previously, going close to the world title twice, in 2013 and 2014. The road to the pinnacle of any profession is filled with obstacles, but Wright is the first to admit that her own path to the top might not have been as bumpy as others’.
One of five siblings, all surfers, she was encouraged by them to join in from an early age and now freely admits to have been lucky to grow up in such a supportive and all-inclusive environment where issues such as gender discrimination, that others might have had to contend with, weren’t apparent.
“It was very much equal grounds,” she says. “I’ve always felt welcome. I don’t know if it’s been like that for everybody but I have three brothers and I’ve just grown up with them always going ‘if we can do it, you can do it and there’s no reason why you can’t’. That’s the foundation I’ve grown up on.”
Nonetheless Wright is at pains to acknowledge the predecessors who blazed a trail for her and and her contemporaries. They include seven-time world champion Layne Beachley and “generations of women” before her. The backstory of Beachley, who at 44 is twice the age of Wright, is suitably different; it’s one of struggle and hardship, constant battles for acceptance and acknowledgement.
“I’m so understanding of what they’ve gone through and what they worked for,” Wright says. “They worked hard to get the sport to where it is. In the sense that they set up so many things for us, I was one of the kids that got to benefit from everything.”
Wright now pulls in the kind of competition pay that Beachley and those who came before her could only dream of. She’s looked after and sponsors are on board; a representative from Rip Curl sits stage left as we chat, and she’s covered for most other ancillary surfing needs, from sunglasses to clothing to energy drinks. She understands it’s a privileged position to be in – and one she feels is conducive to further success in the water.
“Instead of worrying about how I’m going to get to the next event, I can worry about how I’m going to improve my performance and perfect this craft ... which I know they [her predecessors] didn’t get much of,” she says. “But for me, my experience has been different.”
Wright also credits the WSL, the latest incarnation of the governing body of pro surfing, as well as her male counterparts on the Tour, with pushing the agenda for women.
“We have strong-minded and powerful women leading it,” she says. “They’ve come before us and they’ve inspired the next generation to do the same. But we’ve also been lucky that we have the WSL who are very understanding and have also pushed that, as well as the guys on Tour.”
Since the WSL came into existence in 2014, when it consumed the Association of Surfing Professionals, prize money for men and women has been at parity. The men’s pot per event may be bigger, but the male field is almost double the size, and the average take-home per surfer, male or female, from each event is roughly the same. Last year Wright won A$536,000 in prize money and her happiness at being able to compete in these conditions shines through. “It’s incredible,” she says, more than once.
“I see the WSL as being progressive,” she adds. “I see the push, the movement. I see the parity in the prize money. They’ve fought for events that women wouldn’t have got in the past. They want to be leading edge, they take pride in that.
“We’re not the greatest but there’s a continuous movement for equality. We’ve come leaps and bounds in just such a short time.”
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