Carissa Moore
- In full:
- Carissa Kainani Moore
- Also Known As:
- Carissa Kainani Moore
- Awards And Honors:
- Olympic Games
Carissa Moore (born August 27, 1992, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.) is considered one of the greatest female surfers of all time. She is a five-time world champion (2011, 2013, 2015, 2019, and 2021) and the winner of the first Olympic gold medal in women’s surfing. In 2024 Moore announced that she would step away from competitive surfing, and the Paris Olympics later that year was her last event.
Early life and career
Moore is the eldest of two daughters born to Carol Lum and Christopher Moore. The family lived in Honolulu, and her father, a former competitive swimmer, first took her surfing at Waikiki Beach when she was five years old. The young Carissa Moore immediately took to the sport as a father-daughter bonding activity. At six years old, she recorded home videos about how to surf, discussing everything from leashes to catching waves.
After her parents divorced when she was 10 years old, Moore chose to live with her father so she could be closer to the seashore. He encouraged her surfing talents, and the precocious athlete excelled in youth competitions. Moore won a record-breaking 11 titles at the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) national amateur competition, beginning in 2004 when she was just 11 years old. That year she was the second competitor to ever earn an amateur Triple Crown by winning in three NSSA divisions. At the awards banquet in 2004, Moore presented her championship trophy to fellow surfer Bethany Hamilton, who finished in fifth place in the open women’s division; Hamilton had lost an arm in a shark attack the previous year.
In 2008 Moore swept away the competition at the Reef Hawaiian Pro to secure another landmark win, besting seven-time world champion Layne Beachley. The Reef Hawaiian Pro is the first in a series of three surfing events on Oahu’s famous north shore that make up the annual Vans Triple Crown of Surfing—the second most prestigious competition in the sport, after the world championship. At age 16, Moore became the youngest champion of a Triple Crown event. By then, the teenager had already been featured on the cover of Surfer magazine and signed major brand deals with Red Bull, Nike, and the women’s surfwear brand Roxy, among others. Later, in 2011, Moore became the first woman to surf in the men’s Triple Crown.
Moore is not the only famous alumnus of Punahou School. Former U.S. president Barack Obama graduated from the school in 1979.
Moore attended Punahou School in Honolulu from kindergarten through high school. During her senior year, in 2010, she made her debut in the Association of Surfing Professionals—now the World Surf League (WSL)—world championship tour. Later that year she skipped an event in order to attend her graduation ceremony. While on the tour in New Zealand, she spent time with the talented young surfers (called “groms” in slang) of the Waitara Bar Board Riders Club. In turn, members showed up during heats to cheer her on. After winning the New Zealand event, she donated the $15,000 prize money to the club. She won another event and placed third overall on the tour, earning the Rookie of the Year award.
World champion and Olympian
During the 2011 season, Moore won three events and finished second in three other contests. In an upset against four-time winner and defending champion Stephanie Gilmore—who would later attend Moore’s wedding—18-year-old Moore became the youngest surfing world champion. She also won world championships in 2013, 2015, 2019, and 2021. She lost in the finals of 2022 and 2023, despite being ranked number one, due to a controversial rule change that introduced a winner-takes-all format to the last matchup of the championship. The 2020 documentary RISS spotlighted Moore’s character and efforts during the 2019 WSL tour. (“Riss” is Moore’s nickname.)
Moore excels at both big and small waves and is known for her power and artistry.
In 2019 Moore qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Games, where surfing made its Olympic debut. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Games were held in 2021. A typhoon then struck the surfing beach, delaying the final heat between Moore and South African surfer Bianca Buitendag. The two athletes battled it out in the angry sea foam, with a rainbow piercing the clouds above. In the end, Moore took home the first-ever Olympic gold medal in women’s surfing.
In 2012 Moore was named one of National Geographic’s Adventurers of the Year. She was inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame in 2014 and into the Hawaii Waterman Hall of Fame—a part of the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Foundation—in 2021. That same year a 12-story mural depicting Moore beside Duke Kahanamoku, who is considered “the father of surfing,” was completed in Honolulu. The state of Hawaii declared January 4 “Carissa Moore Day” in 2016.
On January 19, 2024, Moore announced that she would be stepping away from competitive surfing. Tahiti Pro—the first event of the 2024 WSL tour—and the 2024 Paris Olympics were her last competitions. In the quarterfinals of the Tahiti Pro in Teahupo’o, Moore was set against Costa Rican surfer Brisa Hennessy in the first heat. On Moore’s first wave she tumbled down the wave and broke her surfboard. Although Moore would grab a few other decent waves, Hennessy’s were bigger and better, resulting in a loss for the Hawaiian. Then, a little more than two months later, Moore went back to Teahupo’o to defend her Olympic gold medal. In the quarterfinals at the dangerous surf break, Moore suffered a disappointing loss to France’s Johanne Defay. Defay would go on to win the bronze medal, and American surfer Caroline Marks took home the gold. Marks has called Moore her biggest inspiration.
Immediately after her loss to Defay, Moore was greeted on the beach with a standing ovation. Tears flowing, she delivered a speech to the waiting journalists:
It’s very raw. You put everything you have into something....And when you come up short of a dream, it sucks. But at the same point, how fun was it? I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I would’ve been so bummed if I looked back and been like, “I only did that half-heartedly.” I went all-in. I just hope that at the end of the day I can encourage whoever’s watching—win or lose—don’t be afraid to go into it fearlessly. Don’t be afraid to fail.
She also reaffirmed her decision to depart from competition, saying she had given the sport her all, for all her life. She expressed gratitude for the support she had received throughout her career. By 2024 Moore had been surfing competitively for two decades.
Beyond surfing
Moore married Luke Untermann in 2017. The following year she founded a nonprofit called Moore Aloha, which works to support young women through scholarships, mentorships, and annual events centered on surfing.
Throughout Moore’s career, critics and fellow competitors alike have lauded her as a genuine, positive force and an unremitting altruist. She has spoken openly about her mental health—namely, about her struggles with body-image issues and an eating disorder and the importance of self-acceptance. An athlete in a sport where young women face sexualization, exploitation, unequal pay, and other injustices, Moore is highly respected within surfing and beyond. In the 2020 documentary RISS, she said:
I feel like the trophies, the accolades, all those things are awesome, but they’re really short-lived. They’re only temporary, and what really matters is how you make people feel and the love that you share.