By Dan Walsh
A perfect 10, the first ever ridden by a woman at a pitch-perfect Pipeline, said it all.
But this year’s champion Caitlin Simmers, went a little further.
“Pipeline for the f---ing girls, that’s all I have to say,” the 18-year-old blurted on the edge of the Banzai break, before being congratulated at the end of her interview for having recently graduated from high school.
Australian prodigy Molly Picklum, proud owner of that 10, took runner’s-up honours in the Pipeline Pro on a groundbreaking day for women’s board riding.
While men have taken part in competitive surfing’s most prestigious event since 1971, the girls ended up at Pipeline almost by accident four years ago, when a fatal shark attack shifted the 2020 Maui Pro from Honolua Bay to the North Shore. Pipe had previously been considered by elements of surfing’s hierarchy as too dangerous for women to compete there.
Two-time world champ Tyler Wright – the winner of that rescheduled event four years ago – has previously railed against an aggressive, macho in-water culture that turned many women away from free-surfing at the break and building up the reps to take on its heaviest waves.
Molly Picklum’s jaw-dropping perfect 10 at Pipeline.Credit: Jesse Jennings/WSL
“Still a f---ing sausage fest” was how she bluntly described the Pipeline atmosphere to this masthead just two years ago.
Not on Sunday. Not in two- to three-metre heaving swells. And not with Picklum, Simmers and local Bettylou Johnson all posting high-scoring waves on one of Pipeline’s classic days.
“I’ve had a bunch of people come up to me and say, ‘This is a historic day for women at Pipe’,” Picklum told this masthead after being narrowly beaten by Simmers in the final.
“It takes a while for your emotions to settle on days like this. I just really enjoyed it. You don’t get to surf waves like that every day.
Caitlin Simmers celebrates her first Pipeline Pro win.Credit: Tony Heff
“I’m just honoured that myself, Caity, Bettylou and everyone who competed were leading the charge. We’ve put in a lot of hours, blood, sweat and tears to get ourselves comfortable at Pipeline and able to showcase that. We’re still learning on the fly for sure out there.
“But we’re at a stage where we got handed a pretty high bar from Carissa [Moore], Tyler and Steph [Gilmore]. And now we just want to keep pushing it further out here.”
Picklum cheered Simmers’ triumph from the water even though it gave the Californian took a 4-0 lead in head-to-head clashes between the pair.
Ironically, surfing’s next great rivalry started when Simmers was just 16 and she gave up her spot on tour to continue her schooling, with Picklum taking her place in the big leagues.
As for the 10, which came in a tense semi-final win over Johnson, Picklum took an incredibly steep drop on a 2.5-metre wave on her backhand (typically a surfer’s less dominant side) before tucking into what became an impossibly tight barrel and shooting out in a fountain of sea spray.
Local Pipeline legend Liam McNamara described Picklum’s ride as the “best wave ever by a goofy-footer”, on Instagram, while Wright was also among the admirers praising the 10-point wave on social media.
“Pipe’s so special, it’s such a perfect but unruly wave and that one sat on the reef, and I knew if I got under [the lip] then I was going to make it,” Picklum said.
“I did, enjoyed the ride, got spat out and was like, ‘Woo’. I’m just honoured by that praise, it’s very cool.
“It adds a bit more volume, and it makes the day a bit more fathomable when people you respect are telling you those kind of things.”
Molly Picklum in the thick of things at Pipeline.Credit: Tony Heff
Picklum’s 10 was matched by mens champion and emerging Hawaiian star Barron Mamiya, who nailed his own impossible barrel in an upset win over Pipeline virtuoso John John Florence.
With the Olympic surfing competition to be held at Tahiti’s Teahupo’o – the most fearsome break on the competitive surfing calendar – in July, Picklum spoke of a day of great achievement and more to come.
“We’ve put added expectation on ourselves that we’ll have to hit each time now, whether it’s Pipe or Chopes [Teahupo’o],” she said.
“But that’s awesome. I think it’s good, I think it will push us and we want that. We’ll step up to that challenge and I can’t wait.”
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