This Week in Women's Surf: January 15, 2024
Sierra Kerr Officially Queen of the Groms, Canada Finally Embraces Erin Brooks, Fresh Edits, Coco Ho's New Board Brand and more!
It’s Official, Sierra Kerr is Queen of the Groms
If we didn’t know it already, it has most definitely been confirmed. In the space of just a few weeks Sierra Kerr has earned herself not one, but two World Junior titles.
Beginning with the ISA World Juniors in Brazil in December, where she claimed the U/16 gold medal, and culminating in the recently wrapped WSL World Juniors in Oceanside, California, where she took the win over Zoe Benedetto, the 16-year-old American Australian has sealed her name in history. Of course she also narrowly missed making the Pipe Masters Final in the small amount of time between the two events, as well as taking out the Best Female Junior division in Stab’s annual Surfer of the Year poll.
Sierra joins a surprisingly long list of women who have won both the ISA and WSL World Junior titles - Jessi Miley-Dyer, Pauline Ado, Sally Fitzgibbons, Laura Enever and Mahina Maeda.
The WSL win guarantees her a slot on the 2024 Challenger Series, giving her the option to skip this current QS season and focus her sights firmly on CT qualification, along with filming for her upcoming movie Kerrazyness.
Her debut edit Pre-Kerrsor has been premiering in different locations over the past month and will land on Stab Premium very soon, and we imagine we’ll be seeing a lot more progressive goodness from Sierra for a long time to come.
Canada Grants Citizenship to Erin Brooks
After many twists and turns in the story, Erin Brooks is officially a Canadian citizen and will have one last chance to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the ISA World Surfing Games in Puerto Rico next month.
Though Erin was born in Texas and grew up in Hawaii, her father Jeff is Canadian. Had her parents filed the paperwork at birth she would have had no trouble with her citizenship status. In the intervening years however, the laws changed and it’s been an arduous process for the Brooks family that initially resulted in Canada Erin’s request for citizenship being denied.
That denial deprived Erin of her best chance for Olympic qualification, through the Santiago 2023 Pan-American Games in October 2023, which she qualified for but was unable to compete at. Her Canadian teammate Sanoa Olin was able to secure herself qualification as a result.
A recent ruling from Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice declared that it is “unconstitutional for Canada to deny automatic citizenship to the children of foreign-born Canadians who grew up abroad”, opening the door for a change in Erin’s case, which the family quickly jumped on.
With 8 Olympic slots up for grabs for women at the World Surfing Games and Erin holding status as the defending silver medalist it seems likely she will still be able to turn her dreams into reality.
Fresh Edits From Zoe McDougall and Caity Simmers
The high quality edits keep coming as Zoe McDougall drops I Love You and Caity Simmers continues the ever-entertaining Toasted output with Drama Queen, a recap of the lead-up to her first WSL Final 5 appearance. Watch them above and get pscyhed!
As long as we’re talking about Caity (and let’s be honest, when aren’t we? 🙄 ), yet another accolade recently fell in her lap after she swept the Best Female category in the Stab Surfer of the Year poll, more than doubling the points of Carissa Moore who came in second.
Coco Ho Launches New Board Brand
After falling in love with alternative surf craft while shooting Stab’s Electric Acid Surfboard Test a few years back, Coco’s surfing trajectory changed entirely and she now wants to share her newfound excitement with women worldwide. Working with Album Surf’s Matt Parker, the pair have designed a range of twin fin boards specifically for women and dubbed them XO COCO. Their California store opens today in San Clemente with plans for Australia in the works. Read more about the collab in Coco’s interview with, you guessed it, Stab.
Emocean Issue 6 - Love
The sixth issue of Emocean Magazine is available now. The newest edition focuses on the theme of Love and features Koa Smith, Ruby Southwell, Siska Tasiripoula, Dave Rastovich, Lauren Hill, Noah Collins and many more. Check it out here.
Sponsorships Fall Off A Cliff
In sadder news, likely the largest surf sponsorship loss in history took place at the end of the year, with contracts ending across multiple brands. Many were due to the recent acquisition of Boardriders (Roxy, Billabong, RVCA, etc.) by Authentic Brands Group, though others also came up, most notably Brisa Hennessy parting ways with Rip Curl after 11 years.
No doubt everyone reading this has already watched the video Kelia Moniz posted on Instagram - if not, stop reading and watch it above. Major props to her for making the stand and giving us a glimpse of what’s really been happening.
Along with Kelia, there’s rumors that Lisa Anderson has also been dropped by Roxy, which is shocking if true. Bettylou Sakura Johnson moved on from Roxy as well, but picked straight up with RVCA. Beyond that, Zoe McDougall and Kirra Pinkerton were let go by Hurley and Zahli Kelly was dropped by Billabong.
We hope others are safe, but there are likely many more announcements still to come, especially as Vans are also currently shedding from their team…
The Double-Up - Episode 60
While we’ve been largely absent on the podcast front for the last few months, we did manage to release an episode before the end of the year, covering the Vans Pipe Masters, ISA Junior and Para Surfing World Champs, as well as both long and shortboard WSL World Champion crowning events. Catch up on it above and we’ll be back soon with more for the new year!