Sierra Kerr part of Snapper Rocks super team aiming to win Australian Boardriders Battle grand final at Burleigh Heads
Sierra Kerr will aim to win the Australian Boardriders Battle surfing grand final at Burleigh with a Snapper Rocks super team this weekend before turning her attention to making the world tour. This is how she plans to do it.
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AS a child Sierra Kerr would sit with Stephanie Gilmore in the athlete’s tent of world tour events while her father Josh competed.
But if everything goes to plan in 2024 the duo could be in the line-up together competing for world’s biggest prizes in surfing by next year.
Kerr is the 17-year-old Gold Coast surfing sensation who shapes as one of Australia’s greatest hopes to join the rising list of compatriots on the tour including 21-year-old Molly Picklum who is currently ranked no. 1 in the world.
They are trying to follow in the footsteps of eight-time world champion Gilmore, but carve their own path too.
At 16, the teenage Kerr won both the World Surf League’s under-21 title and the International Surfing Association’s under-16 world title in 2023 and celebrated with a barbecue and go-karting.
Surf fans will get another glimpse of her skills when she competes at the Australian Boardriders Battle grand final at Burleigh Heads for Snapper Rocks this weekend.
The WSL victory cemented her place in the second-tier pro Challenger Series where a top five finish this year would lift her on to the main Championship Tour, the pinnacle of surfing.
“It’s really cool (to be so close to the world tour). I definitely didn’t think it would come this early,” Kerr said.
She is no stranger to the tour. Few non-CT surfers would have spent as much time in the athlete’s tent at global events as she has.
While Kerr’s dad competed against the world’s best for years, she would fill the days bonding with Australia’s elite.
“I know Steph and also Sally (Fitzgibbons) pretty well because I grew up with them and seeing them all the time at tour events,” Kerr said.
“It’s very cool and pretty unique. I remember hanging out with them while my dad was in a heat. We would play and chat and have a bunch of fun.
“At the time you don’t really realise it is anything out of the ordinary but I was spending time with them from like 12-days-old to when I was like nine or 10.”
It fostered her love of the ocean, for surfing and unknowingly saw her soak up invaluable information from the sport’s best.
Kerr still surfs regularly with Gilmore at their local breaks Snapper Rocks and Duranbah on the Queensland and NSW border as she splits her time between Coolangatta and California.
Her early success means she already has a swag of major financial backers, including some of the biggest brands in surfing like Red Bull, Nike, FCS, Oakley and Volcom.
But despite the potential of a spot on the CT dangling in front of her, Kerr remains measured about the upcoming 12 months.
She recently set out a list of goals as part of a Surfing Australia high performance camp at Casuarina in NSW’s Northern Rivers, putting a huge focus on things that will fast track her development so she is ready when the time comes to join the biggest league.
She also needs to finish school, something that will happen early next year due to her online studies via US education.
“I want to win the WSL (under-21) world title, make a super good surf edit and win a Challenger Series event.”
Kerr already has a reputation for her elite work in the air above the lip of waves but she knows enhancing her ability to make big turns on the biggest waves is crucial to her future. She already has plans on training at breaks like Margaret River in Western Australia and Sunset Beach in Hawaii.
The Australian Boardriders Battle is on Saturday and Sunday from 8am.
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