HALEIWA, Hawaii — 22-year-old Moana Jones Wong blew everyone away Sunday when as a relatively unknown wildcard entry, she defeated five-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist Carissa Moore to win the first ever women’s Billabong Pipe Pro, making history.
It was also the first Hawaii-only final, and crowds roared ferociously to support Wong every time she stood. Wong had only emerged into the wider spotlight a few weeks ago at the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout contest.
Wong grew up in the idyllic Pupukea, where her mother and grandmother had also been born and raised nearby. “My parents had me out surfing when I was in diapers. I [couldn’t] even walk or talk,” she told Spectrum News. “They love surfing too. They’re surfers themselves… surfing just came naturally to me because it was just my parents’ lifestyle. So it became my lifestyle.”
But her lifelong goal of becoming a world champion was riddled with hardship until just a few months ago.
“I was cleaning people’s houses, babysitting, doing all kinds of things to just get by,” she said. “And then all of a sudden, I got this opportunity to be in the [Billabong Pipe Pro] with the best women surfers in the world, and everything has changed so much since that and I never thought that this would ever happen. I never thought that I would take out Carissa Moore, who is like the best woman surfer ever, and that I’d be taking out Tyler Wright, also another one of the world’s [best surfers]. It’s crazy talk.”
Finances aside, there was also the issue of gaining respect in the water. “I mean, people were paying attention to me for sure, but nothing like this at all. Like not even remotely close to this. People know me as, ‘Oh yeah. She’s the girl that surfs Pipe,’” Wong said.
“Most people were saying Carissa was going to win or Tyler was going to win,” she said. “I’m sure my friends and people from the North Shore that I know really well had me as their pick, and a couple of other people. But yeah, I think I was kind of the underdog, in a sense.”
Wong was even confronting difficulty getting a custom surfboard. “I had asked multiple people to shape boards for me and they basically told me they don’t shape boards for unknown surfers. I was an unknown surfer, I guess, according to them, and I was just like, ‘Oh, okay.’”
But those who knew her knew she wasn’t kidding. “After the Backdoor Shootout, that was when people really realized [I was] nothing to mess around with, saying [I] actually charge, fight like crazy,’” she commented.
“Jamie O’Brien, he’ll tell anybody [that I’m] the best woman pipe surfer. And he’s always been saying that since the beginning. But not everybody believed it.”
With a life-changing David vs. Goliath win catapulting her into the worldwide spotlight this past Sunday, Wong may now change the face of women’s surfing for a long time coming. She brought a new energy to a competition that had been dominated by men and completely shook things up.
So, what’s next?
“I want to make it on the championship tour for sure. I want to be a world champion one day; that’s always been my dream. I got married (to local surfer Tehotu Wong) at a young age. I moved out of my parents’ house, and I never had everything served to me on a silver platter,” proclaimed Wong, who said if anyone coaches her, it’s her husband, whom she married in 2021.
“He tells you what to do. And he’s done a really good job. He’s actually really helped me get better in the past couple months.
“It’s such a love that I have for surfing, and just surfing barrels in particular. And that’s something that makes me happy,” she said about why she is so driven. “I don’t know; it kind of gave me a purpose in life. And that’s my escape from everything and I just love it so much.”
“I had to work hard for everything I got. So yeah, that’s why I didn’t have the opportunity to travel and do the contest and try to qualify and I feel like now is actually my opportunity,” proclaimed Wong. “I [am] gonna make it just like all the other girls are making it.”
