Carissa Moore wins first-ever Olympic gold in surfing

Olympic surfing has its first-ever Olympic champion in Team USA’s Carissa Moore.

crown the queen!!! 🥇 @rissmoore10 https://t.co/Zx4PXxDZk2

— Just Women’s Sports (@justwsports) July 27, 2021

With the threat of Tropical Storm Nepartak pushing the quarterfinals, semifinals and medal matches all into one day, it was a marathon of an event for some of the world’s best.

But Moore wasn’t phased.

Eventually, Moore and Bianca Buitendag of South Africa found themselves standing alone in a battle for gold.

In the final heats on Tuesday, competitors had 35 minutes to score as many waves as they could catch. From there, five judges awarded scores from zero to 10, the highest and lowest of which were thrown out while the remaining three were averaged. From there, each surfer’s top two scores were combined for their final score.

In the gold medal heat, the four-time WSL Champion completed two big runs for a final score of 14.93. It was more than enough to beat Buitendag, who finished with a score of 8.46.

Caroline Marks, the 19-year-old American surfer, couldn’t find much to ride and was upset in the quarterfinal, advancing to the bronze-medal heat. She was then beat out by Japanese surfer Amuro Tsuzuki, 6.80 to 4.26, for bronze.