Olympic gold medalist and five-time World Champion Carissa Moore announced she is retiring from competitive surfing.
Before completely stepping away, the 31-year-old will compete in three more competitions. First, the Native Hawaiian will compete in the World Surf League’s season-opening event at the Pipeline Pro on Oahu’s North Shore starting on Jan. 29, which she won last year. After that, she will withdraw from the WSL’s Championship Tour, according to a WSL news release.
Moore will then receive the wildcard to compete in the Tahiti Pro at Teahupo’o, where she previously reached the Quarterfinals twice on the CT. Riding on these challenging waves will be good practice for her closeout event, as Moore will defend her medal in the 2024 Olympic Games Paris with the surfing portion set to take place at Teahupo’o in July.
“Surfing is a part of who I am, and it always will be. This is by no means the end. I’d like to think of this instead as an evolution, the start of the next chapter, a new beginning,” Moore wrote in an Instagram post.
Moore is ending her competitive surfing career to start a family with her husband, Luke Untermann, according to the New York Times. She is open to the idea of returning to competition after having children.
"I’m excited to see what else there is, outside the jersey,” Moore said in the WSL news release. “I don’t like the word retirement. I like to say a departure from the tour, or just stepping back, or switching gears, or, like, evolving.”
The surfing legend grew up in Hawaii and won surfing’s first Olympic gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, which were held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has been competing in the CT since 2010, when she was named Rookie of the Year. The following year, when she was 18, she claimed her first World Title, becoming the youngest man or woman ever to do so.
As she switches gears, she will continue to run Moore Aloha, a charitable organization she started in 2018, when she was losing motivation and her father encouraged her to focus on giving back. The nonprofit says its mission is to “to share valuable tools and resources to help girls and women navigate the waves of mental health, wellness and womanhood.”
Michelle Broder Van Dyke covers the Hawaiian Islands for Spectrum News Hawaii. Email her at michelle.brodervandyke@charter.com.