Code Insight: Tyler Wright has overcome life-threatening illness and family tragedy to surf on her terms
Tyler Wright wants to add to her two world surfing titles; wants to stand on top of the Olympic dais. But these goals will be done on her terms after she was almost lost to everything and everyone.
Make no mistake, Tyler Wright still wants to win.
Wants to add to an already-impressive tally of two World Surf League championships; wants to be standing on the podium at the Olympics next year, preferably on top of the dais. But it will be done on her terms.
Wright was almost lost to surfing after a horrific battle with post-viral syndrome that kept her off the world tour for more than a year. Truth be told, she was almost lost to everything and everyone.
The battle her body waged against her in 2018 and 2019 was so severe, it took everything she had just to survive.
“You’re in survival (mode) and you’re very desperate, and … there’s so much uncertainty around your life and your health that you just don’t know (the way forward),” Wright said in a frank interview with Code Insight.
“I think that leads to a desperation that, at that time particularly, I had never felt, and a sort of uncertainty around my life and whether I was actually going to live … it was a very stressful, traumatic time.”
TRAUMA ON TRAUMA
It was trauma laid over trauma for Wright, who had a front-row seat to brother Owen’s journey back to full health after a brain injury suffered in 2015 when badly concussed at Hawaii’s famous Pipeline break, one of the heaviest waves in the world.
Even before watching her brother’s struggles with what was eventually diagnosed as a traumatic brain injury, and helping nurse him back to full health, Wright’s relationship with surfing was tricky.
After winning her first pro event at just 14, she was thrust into the spotlight and a professional career that seemed more a destiny than a choice.
A spartan upbringing that focused as much on the five Wright children learning to push themselves to their physical and mental limits as dad Rob prioritised crafting future champions over almost all else, meant Tyler was always likely to end up in the professional surfing arena.
“My parents – and my father particularly – did his best,” Wright said of Rob’s near obsession with readying his children for life as professional athletes. “But it probably wasn’t specifically the best thing for me personally. And that’s just part of life. It’s learning and growing and you get to an age and you’re like, ‘I can see that you did your best’.
“Pro surfing … probably wasn’t my first choice, it was kind of just something that I did at 14.
“This was the task at hand and this was the direction I’ve been told to go in.”
Add to that the sudden death of her beloved uncle, Mark Morrison, soon after Owen’s injury and mum Fiona’s repeated battle with brain tumours and Wright’s been through the wringer.
“The thing about trauma – and what I’ve really come to understand about my experience – is that, I’ve had a lot,” Wright said.
“So my baseline has never really been a normal baseline.
“Something I work really, really hard at now is to kind of be ordinary.
“I don’t want to be extraordinary. I don’t want to be a super hero or a weapon, or anything, I just want to be ordinary and have an ordinary baseline.
“It’s not something that I may ever get to but I’m going to work really hard (towards that).”
THE ILLNESS
Pushing herself to her physical and emotional limits from such a young age took a toll on Wright.
Little is still understood about exactly what triggers post-viral illnesses, although since the emergence of Covid and the number of people now reporting long-Covid symptoms, there is certainly greater acceptance of not only the effect, but existence of the condition.
This wasn’t necessarily the case when Wright missed almost the entire 2019 season after contracting influenza A in 2018 and then a post-viral syndrome that almost killed her.
The simplest task could bring on immense fatigue or pain and Wright endured months of headaches, intense muscular pain and night terrors before a long and arduous journey back to health that only came about when she learnt to reject the lifelong traits that had made her such a great competitor. “Everything I leant to be a professional athlete, actually didn’t help me,” Wright said. “What made me great was terrible for my life.
“I was raised pretty specifically to not stop and to be in that mindframe (all the time).
“Your life changes really quickly (when you’re sick) but your whole life experience that you remember doesn’t.
“I would say that’s mentally the hardest thing in that process … was stopping – and then unlearning.”
THE NEXT CHAPTER
There are two chapters to Wright’s career.
Before and after her post-viral battles. The “after”, is a choice.
“I had a lot of choices to make because I’m not driven by the same things that I was before,” she said. “When you’re so consciously aware of why you’re doing things, you really question yourself. ‘Is it worth it? Is this what you’re meant to be doing your time your life?’
“So I think things became a little bit deeper, a little bit more considered and a little bit more conscious as I started to move forward in the next steps of whether I should return to sport or whether I should just call it a day in my surfing career and pursue other interests
“I’ve had a lot of choices to make and honestly, the putting yourself back together to become a professional athlete isn’t an easy thing.”
By the time Wright was ready to return to competition after working intensively with neuro-rehabilitation chiropractor Brett Jarosz, she had lost 18kg. The drastic drop had taken away much of the power that made Wright able to attack some of the most famous breaks in the world in a way that no other women could match.
That her still-frail body earnt plaudits when she returned to competition only reinforced what Wright had experienced on her first journey around the professional sport merry-go-round.
“I had people tell me that that was the best that I’d looked because I was skinny – and yet, I couldn’t get out of bed,” Wright said.
“As a woman, you really question the perception of society, because if you’re telling me this is the best I’ve ever looked and I’m on my deathbed … no, I’m not having that, I don’t want any of it. It’s the furthest thing from what I want. What I’ve always liked is power and strength. And people don’t value that.”
THE WAY FORWARD
Understanding her own values and surrounding herself with people who will respect those was another choice Wright made on return to the world championship tour.
Now healthy and also comfortable in her own skin – she and wife Lilli will celebrate their first wedding anniversary next month – Wright has assembled a team that helped her complete her first full season on the WSL tour since 2017 this year where she was in contention for the title, eventually finishing third.
Her athlete-led team is filled with those who value the process and the journey Wright’s on, although they’re not just a bunch of head nodders, “they’re definitely very honest with me”.
What they do understand is what Wright has had to contend with – and will continue to battle for the rest of her life.
“Trauma doesn’t just show up on your f---ing doorstep and say, ‘Hey, I’m trauma’,” she said. “It seeps in everywhere. It doesn’t just play out in front of you.
“You don’t really know (the effect) until you have a willingness to look. And sometimes it is just easier not to – and I get that. But for me, I’ve had to.”
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