Heirs Apparent—The Next Generation of Female Surfers takes the stage

Every sport evolves, but at the moment, women’s professional surfing is being reborn. At press time, seven girls under the age of 21 are in the process of knocking down the door to the big leagues—the Women’s World Champoinship Tour—and forever changing how we think of women’s competitive surfing.

In the past six months we’ve watched young women qualify for the WCT in record time, sign unprecedented sponsorship deals, and decisively defeat household names to win WCT events—doing it all with style, grace, and the kind of progressive modern surfing once thought of as strictly for the guys.

This explosion of young talent isn’t gender specific—men’s surfing is experiencing a similar explosion of highly talented tweens—but the rate at which young girls are claiming the mantle of high-performance surfboard riding is, at the moment, nothing less than staggering.

—Christina Scannapiego

(Left: Alana Blanchard; photo by Russi)

 
(Left: Laura Enever; photo by Chris Carey)

 
(Left: Sage Erickson; photo by Russi)