Stephanie Gilmore
Stephanie Louise Gilmore is an Australian professional surfer and eight-time world champion on the women's World Surf League professional tour. She is considered to be one of the greatest surfers of all time, with the most world titles and event victories in the history of the women's WSL and its predecessor, the Association of Surfing Professionals. She also remains the only surfer in history of the professional tour to win a world title in their debut season of the tour, going on to win four world titles in a row from 2007 to 2010.
Gilmore began her professional career as a 17-year-old, winning her first event as a wildcard in 2005, qualifying for the professional tour two years later. After her run of four consecutive world titles, she won her fifth world title in 2012, after being injured throughout 2011. Her sixth world title in 2014 is considered to be one of the most exciting seasons in women's surfing, with the race coming down to the final heat of the season. After three seasons of inconsistent form, Gilmore won her seventh world title in 2018. Her eighth world title in 2022 came under unique circumstances. Ranked as the fifth seed in the WSL final, she won every heat throughout the day to beat rival Carissa Moore and emerge as champion. She took a competitive hiatus in 2024 and 2025.
Gilmore is credited with pushing women's surfing to equal standing with the men's event, both as a competitor and as an advocate. She was a driving force behind the women's tour receiving equal prize money to the men and equal priority in competitive wave selection. She is also one of Australia's most endorsed athletes, named the highest-earning Australian female athlete in 2015, with her contracts with Rip Curl and Quiksilver's female-focused brand Roxy among the most lucrative in Australian surfing.
Early years
Gilmore was born in Murwillumbah, New South Wales. Her father was a surfer, who Gilmore described as "a bit of a hippy", while her mother worked as a primary school teacher. She has two older sisters, Bonnie and Whitney.She began to surf when her father would pick her up after school, and go to their local beach in Kingscliff, with Gilmore asked to decide to wait on the beach or come surfing, choosing the latter. Her first experience in the surf was riding a boogie board in the waves while being "towed" by her father at the age of nine. She would surf regularly with him, calling her love for the sport "a healthy addiction" and was "not something to take too seriously." Her family would drive to Byron Bay during school holidays to surf and "pull up at the caravan park and pitch the tent, and mum and dad would just hang out while we'd all go surfing at the Pass."
She attended Kingscliff High School, sitting her Higher School Certificate days after winning her second junior world-title and graduated from Year 12 in 2005.
Professional surfing career
2005–2006: Wildcard appearances
While completing her final year of school, Gilmore began competing in world tour events as a wild card competitor, which included a victory at the 2005 Roxy Pro Gold Coast.In her next season, Gilmore won another event as a wild card, the 2006 Beachley Classic, defeating the event's namesake, Layne Beachley in the final, a moment considered to be a 'changing of the guard'. In addition to wild card appearances, Gilmore joined the ASP Qualifying Series, finishing second overall and qualifying for the 2007 ASP World Tour.
2007: Debut season and first world title
Gilmore became ranked world number one for the first time after winning at Bells Beach, reaching the same number of points as 2005 world champion Chelsea Hedges, with her road to victory including her beating 2004 world champion Sofía Mulánovich in the final. The next event took place in Brazil in August, with Gilmore earning the overall lead by finishing in the semifinal. After finishing ninth in the event in Spain, Gilmore dropped to world number four. Gilmore was able to win the next event in Sydney, beating Silvana Lima in the final, becoming world number one again heading into the final events of the season.Entering the final round in the Billabong Pro Maui, continuing to be ranked world number one; her other world title contenders—Mulánovich and Lima—both lost during round three, meaning Gilmore had won the world title. Gilmore was not expecting to seal the world title as quickly during the event, describing the events that unfolded as "a shock." She became the first rookie, on the women's tour, to win a world title. Gilmore still considers her 2007 world title "very memorable," given that it was both her first title and her debut season.
2008–2010: Undefeated world title streak
In her first competition in the 2008 season, Gilmore finished ninth at Snapper Rocks, although was able to win at Bells Beach for the second consecutive year. Gilmore became the leader in the world title race after a win in Peru for the second consecutive season, beating Beachley and Lima enroute, as Mulánovich was surprisingly eliminated in the quarterfinals. At Sunset Beach, two rounds left in the season, Gilmore, Beachley, Mulánovich and Lima were all still in contention to win the world title, but all had to win the event to prevent Gilmore from winning the title with one event left to spare. The final was contested by Lima and Gilmore, with Gilmore receiving the highest-scoring wave of the four-person final and solidifying the world title for the second consecutive year.Gilmore began her 2009 season intending to win her home event, Snapper Rocks, which she eventually accomplished, while also being conscious of a new generation of rookies entering the tour, including future championship rival Sally Fitzgibbons. A loss to Lima in the final of Bells Beach, her first loss at the event in her competitive career, Gilmore continued to maintain her world number one standing. In 2009, Gilmore remained number one in the world, leading into Peru. She sealed her third consecutive world title in a row at Sunset Beach, when her world championship rivals lost in previous heats, leaving Gilmore the last woman standing. She finished her season by winning the Billabong Pro Maui, securing a triple crown title for the second consecutive year, beating Mulánovich by eight points in the final. When asked about whether she had anything else left to prove, she replied, "I feel like I've got nothing left to prove really and I'm just working on my own performance in the water." With her performances throughout the 2009 season, Gilmore was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Action Sportsperson of the Year in 2010.
In 2010, Gilmore's road to the road title began with winning at Snapper Rocks for the second consecutive year. In addition, she reclaimed her title at Bell's Beach, beating Fitzgibbons in the semi-final and Mulánovich in the final, although nearly had a premature departure from the competition when she narrowly beat newcomer Tyler Wright in round three. The event in Taranaki, New Zealand, saw Gilmore suffer a surprise loss to New Zealand teenager Sarah Mason in the third round. She also was eliminated in the third round at the US Open of Surfing event in Huntington Beach. Gilmore sealed her fourth consecutive world title when reaching the quarterfinal of the second last event of the season in Puerto Rico, with a 0.10 point victory over Melanie Bartels. When asked about how she felt achieving the accomplishment, she replied, "Not even in my wildest dreams did I think I could win consecutively like this." In the process, she became the first person in the history of the ASP to win four consecutive world titles in her first four seasons on the professional circuit. In celebrating Gilmore's world title, fellow Australian world champion Mick Fanning praised her ability to "keep that focus for so long", declaring his belief that she could win ten world titles if she wanted to. Gilmore would also go on to win in Puerto Rico, beating Carissa Moore in the final. She was inducted into the Surfers' Hall of Fame.
On 27 December 2010, Gilmore was walking home from the movie theatres after a close friend who was originally meant to meet up with her could not make it at the last minute, when she was attacked twice by a homeless man with a metal bar as she approached her apartment, with hits to her head and her arm. She was admitted to the hospital with cuts to the head and a broken wrist that she used to shield herself. Her attacker, who was suffering from schizophrenia and under consumption of alcohol and drugs, was sentenced to four years in jail. Spending weeks away from surfing to recover, Gilmore when reflecting on the period in 2019, stated, "It was the first time in my life that I had such a traumatic experience and such a mountain to climb ahead of me.”
2011: Personal struggles and first championship loss
At the beginning of the year, Gilmore signed a multi-million-dollar brand endorsement and sponsorship deal with Quiksilver. In the lead-up to the 2011 season, her sister and manager, Whitney, banned members of the media from talking to Gilmore, except for pre-arranged interviews, with questions about her attack being off-limits. She briefly discussed the effect that the attack had on her mentally before Bells Beach, citing the uncertainty behind how she would cope with it, "I've never had a trauma in my life like that and I was just as interested as everyone else to see how I was going to deal with it." Her broken wrist made it challenging to surf, with falls off the surfboard exacerbating the pain, which would continue to be an issue over the next two seasons.At Snapper Rocks, the first event of the season, Gilmore lost in the quarterfinals after only six weeks of preparation, stating she was "behind the pack, behind the eight ball." At Bells Beach, she was eliminated in the semi-finals by Fitzgibbons, with her wrist injury still making it challenging for her to compete. The event in Rio de Janeiro in May, saw Gilmore eliminated from contention for the world title for the first time in her career, with a loss in the semi-finals to world number two, Sally Fitzgibbons, after being required to finish above world number one, Carissa Moore, to stay within reach. Ironically, Gilmore would end Fitzgibbons world title chances in Biarritz, France, by winning the event over the newly-crowned world champion, Moore. Gilmore's mental health continued to suffer, which affected her performance on the tour throughout the season, "I think the hardest part was, because I'd won four world titles back-to-back, I didn't know what losing was like and to lose that winning streak due to something that was out of my control seemed like such a bummer." When reflecting on the season in a 2019 interview, Gilmore stated, “I was questioning my confidence in the ocean. I was questioning just everything.” Gilmore would finish third overall in the year to Moore, who ousted her as the youngest world champion in women's surfing history.