Shortboard, Women

Heading into the Olympics, the big story on the women’s side was that surfing legend Carissa Moore of the USA, five time World champion and winner of the Olympic gold at Tokyo, had announced at the beginning of the year that her participation at the Paris Games would represent the end of her competitive career for the time being. That certainly placed her as a sentimental favorite and an opponent to be respected. The American team also supplied another strong favorite in the person of Caroline Marks, already at 22 years of age, with an impressive career resume, including the 2023 Women’s World Championship, and even more significantly in terms of the Olympic venue, the 2023 Tahiti Pro event winner. That event, although the 2024 version, held at Teahupo’o, also raised the potential medal profiles for Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb, who placed second there and achieved a perfect 10 on one of her rides, and winner of the event, a local Tahitan, France’s Vahiné Fierro. France also provided another Olympic medal hopeful, veteran Johanne Defay, a multiple winner on the World Surfing League tour and three time medalist at the World Surfing Games.

The women’s competition held few surprises in the early going, with all the favorites moving through to Round 3. Johanne Defay did take a rougher route than the others, though, gashing and bloodying her head on the reef in the very first heat of the first round. Not to be deterred, she bravely shook that off to go on a run that would end with her eventually mounting the podium as the bronze medal winner over Brisa Hennessy of Costa Rica. In the process, Defay knocked off Australian Molly Picklum, French teammate Vahiné Fierro, and defending gold medalist Carissa Moore. Defay’s winning run came to an end in a close semifinal match up with Caroline Marks, who trailed in the early going before emerging victorious. In the final, Marks faced Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb, victor over Costa Rica’s Hennessy in the other semifinal. The final matchup ended in very close fashion, coming down to the last second. Following a brief moment in which neither surfer knew for certain who had emerged the winner, Caroline Marks was announced the gold medalist, with Weston-Webb settling for silver.